Blast from the past

“WAR! UGH! GOOD GOD! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NUTHIN’! SAY IT AGAIN…”

No, Edwin, thanks all the same, we heard you the first time. And it wasn’t exactly a ball-buster then either.

You can take it that Edwin Starr (with a double r) and Sam Snort (with a double vodka) don’t exactly see eye to eye about the role of pop in the eternal battle against the forces of darkness.

Edwin, and others like him, reckon that if they develop a catchy slogan, buttress it with a monster bass line, shout it loud enough and release it anytime apart from the always gridlocked Christmas period, they can chant down Babylon in a jiffy. Or at least get something into the top ten. Sam’s approach is slightly different; he believes that, in the face of evil, oppression and injustice, it is much better to retire to one’s private quarters, torch a ginormous spliff and indulge in some languid third-leg boogie with a consenting adult. My reasoning? You will achieve precisely no more or no less than the protesters but at least you’ll have the bonus of being left with a big, sloppy grin on your face.

Commie bastard

Of course, that’s not to say that Sam didn’t approve of last week’s big march. More than that, he was proud to ramble along, holding up a nice big placard that said, “Condoleeza Can Suck My Dick”. Many people commented approvingly on the crude humour of the line, rather missing the point that, in my own mind, I wasn’t protesting, I was granting permission. ‘Ol Connie is one of the few politicians of whom it can truly be said that she’s no oil tanker, and if she happened to be scrutinising one of those high-magnification US surveillance shots of the march in Dublin, searching for commie bastards, who knows what she may have seen? “I take it that’s the new Spire of Dublin, right Donny?” “No, Connie, that would be the famous rock critic Sam Snort, tumescent as always”. “Jeez”.

To be honest, what really bothered Sam about the anti-war march was the all too abundant evidence that the protest movement hasn’t advanced one chord progression since the 1960s. On Nassau Street, the peaceniks were blasting Dylan’s ‘Masters Of War’ out of an improvised sound system in a shopping trolley; in front of Iveagh House someone was shrieking the ‘Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag’ and almost everywhere you looked there were signs reading ‘Make Love Not War’.

For those of us who had been there the first time, there was an eerie feeling of déjà vu, as if nothing has changed except that now the hippies could arrange to score dope over the mobile phone. Which is no bad thing, of course, and Sam heartily approves of anything that makes it easier to get hold of the man. But whether the increasingly efficient distribution of ganja will in itself be enough to stop war in the Gulf is debatable.

Of course, Sam would be only too willing to throw his weight behind the peace movement if the bastards showed any respect for high quality musicianship and guys who’ve paid their dues. But no, my helpful suggestion that Foghat would be glad to soundtrack the revolution was turned down by some lank-haired dork at Mega Records who thought that “world music” was the appropriate vehicle for protest in the new Ireland.

So, once again, the long suffering public have had to put with bongo madness, nose-flute dementia, unashamed Irish speakers and even reams of fucking poetry, when they could have checked out the new Foghat album which was deliberately crafted, over at least two whole days, to capitalise on – sorry, to support – the anti-war effort.

Pile of shite

A concept album in the full-tilt southern boogie style, the wonderfully titled That’s Another Fine Mesopotamia You Got Me Into, finds yer ‘Hat detonating such uncompromising political blasters as ‘Hang The Gardens’, ‘Shannon! Doh!’, the post-apocalyptic ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Baghdad’ an inspired Morrisonesque meditation on leadership called ‘Saddam George’(“Life would have been better under the benign tyranny of Jack Benny/instead we ended up with two sides of the same bastard penny”) and a remarkable portrait of a the first fundamentalist Islamic Irish republican, ‘Maureen The Burqa’.

Unfortunately, critical reaction to Foghat’s opus has been nothing short of vicious. “Haven’t the Iraqi people suffered enough? asked Tariq Aziz. The normally mild-mannered Kofi Annan called it “A pile of shite”. And the UN demanded sanctions against Lance Turnpike and company.

Still, at least Rolling Stone gave it three stars.

See you on the barricades.

Your ever lovin’ Samuel J. Snort Esq