THE NIGHTWATCHMAN'S NEW RELEASES

Last month, I wrote about The Nightwatchman's solo(ish) acoustic(ish) concert at City Winery in New York City.  I've been listening to his two latest releases (The Union Town EP and World Wide Rebel Songs), both before that show and since.  I think that Tom Morello is finally coming into his own as a solo artist.

Saying that Tom has "come into his own" does sound a bit weird.  He's one of the most innovative and influential electric guitarists of the past two decades, and Rage Against The Machine was one of the best bands to come out of the amazing '90s Lollapalooza era. He "came into his own" a long time ago. Audioslave may not have quite reached Rage's heights, but had lots of incredible songs over their three album run.  And Street Sweeper Social Club has a lot of potential, and already have a fistful of great jams.

But when he started performing and recording songs as The Nighwatchman, he did so to prevent people from coming to see a "Tom Morello" show. He's more in the lane of artists like Springsteen and Earle than of Rage's peers.

When Tom did his first Nightwatchman album, One Man Revolution, in 2007, lots of the songs were pretty dry.  It reminded me a bit of Springsteen's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, which I know was a big influence on Mr. Morello. Both guys were really influenced by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  The first few performances I ever saw by any artist were by Pete, and the thing about him is that, as political as he is, he wants you to sing along, and maybe have a good time while thinking about the world. Tom had one great sing-along on his first album, "The Road I Must Travel," but the rest of album wasn't as engaging (although there were definitely some great songs).  I felt like the album would appeal mainly to Tom's existing loyal fans, but I don't think that was his intent.

I think World Wide Rebel Songs actually may help him find a different audience, and may not just have him preaching to the converted.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think a lot of Faux News loyalists will start listening to Tom and have their minds opened.  I'm saying that his two latest release makes him a more credible solo artist, regardless of his prior discography.

My favorite Nightwatchman song ever is probably "Save The Hammer For The Man," a duet and co-write with the great Ben Harper. I'd love to see these guys do more together.  "World Wide Rebel Songs" is a great sing-along.  He gets his Tom Waits on on "Facing Mount Kenya."  And, here is maybe the best compliment  I could give him: when I listen to "Stray Bullets," I can hear the late, great Joe Strummer singing it.

The bonus track on the album is the title track to the EP, released a few months earlier, "Union Town." It's another of his best songs, and the first time he's really combined his Nightwatchman persona with his electric guitar wizardry.  He's said that playing an electric version of "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" on stage with Bruce Springsteen made him realize that he could combine the two.  But he's not always about the electric guitar on this EP: his rollicking version of "Solidarity Forever" is a piano and acoustic guitar driven tune. He takes out the electric for an incredible version of "Which Side Are You On?" and his "This Land Is Your Land" is the most rocking I've ever heard (and of course, includes the "banned" lyrics).    It closes with a solo live version of "Union Song" from One Man Revolution recorded at the Wisconsin protests earlier this year. The original version is pretty great, but this is the definitive one for me.

I imagine the next thing Tom will do will be a new Street Sweeper album, which I'm also looking forward to.  But I also think that The Nightwatchman will get more and more powerful in the years to come.  Given the state of the nation, I don't think Tom's running out of ideas, or great music, any time soon.

THE NIGHTWATCHMAN AT CITY WINERY: A (GLORIOUSLY) IRONY-FREE ZONE

I'd seen the great Tom Morello in concert a number of times - with Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Street Sweeper Social Club.  But this was my first real Nightwatchman show (other than a brief appearance at Pete Seeger's 90th birthday concert).  At that show, Tom and Bruce Springsteen did an acoustic duet of "The Ghost Of Tom Joad," a song that Rage surprised people with when they covered it in the '90s.  These days, it makes a lot more sense. Tom's dedication to sticking up for the less fortunate, and his outrage at the evils of society is similar to Bruce's (he's even more "left" than Bruce, I think).  But performing as The Nightwatchman, Tom makes a compelling case as a guy with two different and legit musical personas.  One - the guitar shredder from Rage and Street Sweeper, and, two, The Nightwatchman either solo or backed by a band. The Nightwatchman is something he can always do, whether or not he is with a band. Or whether or not he has electricity.

There's a bit of a misperception about Tom doing The Nightwatchman.  Because his debut album, 2007's One Man Revolution was a bit sparse and dry, people probably think his shows will be slow and boring.  I think on some level, even Tom realized that he could be playing to bigger audiences by, well, having a bit more fun.  If you listen to "The Iron Wheel" (a duet with Shooter Jennings) from his second album, 2008's The Fabled City, it's a great sing-along tune. Some of Woody Guthrie's songs were fun, I think Tom caught on to that.  I think his earlier tours were like Bruce's first solo acoustic tour for The Ghost Of Tom Joad. I saw that show twice: it was good, but demanding, and it felt like fun was not allowed. You can pull that off if you're, like Leonard Cohen or something. But Woody, Pete Seeger, even Steve Earle, they have fun at their shows.  I think Tom realized this. This tour was more like Bruce's Devils and Dust tour: he realized that it's ok to do serious solo acoustic shows and still have a good time. Everyone walked out of the show with a smile on their face, but also charged up.

So last night's show was a solo acoustic deal, but he was joined by Carl Restivo from his backing band (Carl is also in Street Sweeper Social Club).  It was an incredibly powerful show.  Like Bruce, Tom lets the audience know when to be quiet, and those moments provided some of the most powerful moments of the night. One was "Battle Hymns," which he dedicated to Iraq Veterans Against the War (learn more about them here). He also did a version of Pink Floyd's "When The Tigers Broke Free" from The Wall (about how the main character's father died in the war), updating the lyrics for 2011.  

But those songs had greater weight, because, as Tom put it, he brought the "heavy metal thunder" on many other songs.  "Save The Hammer For The Man" from his new album, World Wide Rebel Songs, was incredible (the original is a duet with the great Ben Harper, Carl did his best to sing Ben's part, and he did so ably).  "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" was mindblowing - Tom switching to an electric in the middle of the song to melt faces.  Maybe the most rockin song was "This Land Is Your Land." Tom added the "censored" lyrics, which make it much more radical (see the lyrics and a historic performance of that song by Seeger and Springsteen here). He had the whole room jumping - explaining that everyone HAD to jump, as his show was "an irony free zone" even though it was in New York City.  You can see a bootleggy video of the performance here.  It's obvious he has taken notes from Springsteen, but he's clearly doing his own thing.  He finished up by inviting the audience on stage for "World Wide Rebel Songs," instructing one woman in the audience to film the show for YouTube, and demanding that the rest of us stop tweeting and filming and live in the moment.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the after-party (and this is a good place to mention that I got complimentary tickets, in the interest of full disclosure).  I met some nice folks from Tom's management team, and even introduced my wife - who took these excellent photos, and who is a public school teacher and a proud union woman - to Tom.  She got to thank him for his support.  It was a great moment.

One moment that I wish he had was "The Iron Wheel," one of The Nightwatchman's greatest songs.  Shooter Jennings was there, I couldn't believe they didn't perform together! Maybe next time.

On a final note, I'll mention that I got to chat with Mr. Morello the day before - I filmed him for SiriusXM's E Street Radio.  We discussed a recent quote of his from Rolling Stone magazine, where he said that he's the last man in America who thinks Bob Dylan sold out by going electric. So, I'm here to say that Tom has at least one stance that I totally disagree with.  "Hurricane" is way better with a band than it would be without, and ditto for "Lovesick." That's just off the top of my head. But anyway, thank you Tom for a great show, hope to see you again soon. (Tom will be on E Street Radio on September 5 and 6, for listings and rebroadcast times, go here).

HOW "BORN IN THE U.S.A." INFLUENCED "KILLING IN THE NAME"

Yes, it's true. In the above video, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello (who of course also records as The Nightwatchman, is a member of Street Sweeper Social Club and a former member of Audioslave) explains how Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." influenced Rage's "Killing In The Name" (yes, the "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" song). He's talking to Jay Weinberg, son of E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. This is part of an E Street Radio roundtable discussion that is airing on the channel this week: I was lucky enough to be in the SIRIUS XM studios in New York (Tom Morello was in the Los Angeles studio).

'95 PELTIER BENEFIT FEATURES RAGE, BEASTIES, HELMET

Via Pitchfork, I saw that a new website has been set up to offer free downloads of a Leonard Peltier benefit album that was supposed to come out in 1995, but never did. Exiled In The Land Of The Free was supposed to come out on Columbia, didn't, and now a former employee of the label set up a site offering the album as a free download in hopes of bringing more attention to Peltier's cause.

The album features a live version of Rage Against The Machine's "Wake Up," Corrosion Of Conformity's "Land of the Free Disease," Helmet's "Just A Patsy," The Beastie Boys' "(R)evolution Time" and tracks by Josh Homme, Bad Religion, Quicksand and Mike Watt. Plus Zach de la Rocha backed by C.O.C. doing the Minutemen song "The Punchline."

AEROSMITH - THE FULL AEROSMITH - TO PLAY DOWNLOAD?

The Download Festival is a big UK festival, and they've just announced via their website that Aerosmith will be one of the headliners this year (along with AC/DC and Rage Against The Machine). The website is very careful to specify that this won't be the Aerosmith guys with another singer: "Last playing as headliners of the Donington Monsters Of of Rock Festival in 1990 and 1994, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry et all return with their legendary juggernaut performance..." Great! I wonder if Joe Perry knows? Download takes place June 11 - 13 at Donington Park in the UK.

BEST OF THE 00's: RICK RUBIN

I have often expressed admiration of Rick Rubin 's production skills. If I were a producer, I'd like to be like him: hip-hop, metal, funk, punk, country, singer-songwriters, nothing is off limits, and he proved that again in the '00s.

He remained close collaborator of Johnny Cash, producing American III: Solitary Man and American IV: The Man Comes Around in the early years of the decade. I would argue that Cash's American series of albums are nearly as good as anything he'd ever done, obviously American IV's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" was one of the greatest moments of an incredible career. Rick also curated the incredible Unearthed box set, allowing fans to hear some of the incredible things that didn't make the American albums. He's also been the keeper of the Cash flame, releasing American V: A Hundred Highways, which featured "God's Gonna Cut You Down" (and now there's word that 2010 will see the final album from the American sessions, American VI: Ain't No Grave.

Rick started working with Tom Morello, who certainly was paying attention to Rubin's rap/rock/metal hybrids in the '80s. Rubin produced Rage Against The Machine's final album, the all-covers Renegades, as well as their posthumously released live album, Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium (which turned out to be the band's final shows before reuniting years later). Rubin hooked Morello and Rage mates Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk up with ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and produced the first Audioslave album.

One of Rick's supposed talents is to discover new talent, and I don't know how much he's done that in the past decade, but one band he did work with early on is System Of A Down, who are one of the best metal bands around (even though they seem to be on hiatus at the moment). Rick signed them to his American Recordings, and has produced their albums, including (this decade) Toxicity (which, bizarely, hit #1 on 9/11), Steal This Album! and Hypnotize and Mesmerize.  Another younger band in the heavy guitar category he worked with The Mars Volta on their De-Loused In The Comatorium album.

He remained the go-to guy for The Red Hot Chili Peppers (having worked with them ever since 1991's BloodSugarSexMagik), producing the excellent By The Way and the maybe-too-long double album Stadium Arcadium. I really hope they work with him on the next one, which will be their first since guitarist John Frusciante quit (again).

He briefly returned to hip-hop, producing a cover of Ice-T's "99 Problems" for Jay-Z's "final" record, The Black Album. It may be Jay's finest moment. Less successful was his "Better Than I Ever Been" track that he produced for Nike, featuring Kanye West, Nas and KRS-One (DJ Premier later did a better remix which also featured Rakim).

Rubin also veered closer to the mainstream, producing Shakria's Oral Fixation albums, which included her huge hit collaboration with Wyclef Jean, "Hips Don't Lie." There was also The Dixie Chicks' album Taking The Long Way featuring the classic "Not Ready To Make Nice." And he tried to give Neil Diamond a new credibility by doing some American Recordings type stripped down albums with him. He also worked with Weezer, Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan on his first solo album, a new-ish Americana-type band called The Avett Brothers who I need to write more about, and The Gossip. And of course, Metallica's triumphant comeback album, Death Magnetic. He also produced some tracks with U2, but the full album he worked on with them remains in the vaults.  And he is apparently working with Crosby Stills & Nash and ZZ Top at the moment. Will he discover more LL Cool J's, Run-D.M.C.s, Public Enemys, Slayers and System of a Downs in the '00s? That's what will be interesting to see.

TOM MORELLO: EXOTIC DANCER?

Tom Morello has done a lot in his career: he is a member of Street Sweeper Social Club, a sometimes member of Rage Against The Machine, and a former member of Audioslave and Lock Up. He records solo albums as The Nightwatchman, and has collaborated with Primus, Maynard James Keenan, Layne Staley, The Crystal Method, Johnny Cash, The Prodigy, Anti-Flag and Macy Gray, and he's jammed with Chuck D and Bruce Springsteen. As an actor, he's appeared in Star Trek: Voyager and Iron Man. He's an activist, a Harvard graduate and he used to work for California Senator Alan Cranston. But did you know he had a stint as an exotic dancer? It's true: he talks about it in an article he wrote for the NME, "What Rock and Roll Taught Me." After graduating Harvard, he moved to L.A. to pursue rock stardom, and was a dancer to make ends meet. He says that he worked at a few bachelorette parties, and is grateful that YouTube wasn't around back then! Read the whole thing here.

TWILIGHT VS. THE CROW

Last week, the soundtrack to the film
Twilight was the #1 album in the country. I attribute this to (a) it's part of the Twilight craze: kids love the book and are eagerly anticipating the film. (b) It features two new songs by Paramore. I can't get into them: they're like a band fronted by Avril Lavigne. It just isn't my thing.

But the album does have some good stuff: Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole" (not new, but a cool tune) and a band I never heard of called The Black Ghosts, who I am now interested in hearing more from. There's also songs by Perry Farrell (it's OK), Iron & Wine and the film's co-star Robert Pattinson, who apparently likes Ray LaMontagne a lot.

For some reason, this album reminded me of the soundtrack to The Crow, another gothy highly anticipated soundtrack from an eagerly anticipated film back in 1994, which also hit #1. It featured some classic track from Nine Inch Nails (a cover of Joy Division's "Dead Souls"), Rage Against The Machine ("Darkness") and Helmet ("Milktoast"), plus cool covers from The Rollins Band (Suicide's "Ghost Rider") and Pantera (Poison Idea's "The Badge"). The big hit was Stone Temple Pilots' "Big Empty." At the time I was annoyed that a not credible band was soiling the soundtrack, but today I have to admit it's a pretty good song.

Anyway, for my money, The Crow soundtrack is way better than Twilight's. But if Twilight gets attention for Muse and The Black Ghosts, then great.

ZACH DE LA ROCHA'S NEW PROJECT

Back in September, I wrote about how Zach de la Rocha had allegedly finished his first solo album. And then nothing happened. Now, the interweb is reporting that Zach has a new project called One Day As A Lion with Jon Theodore, the drummer from The Mars Volta. Zach plays keyboards. Their debut EP comes out July 22. I look forward to hearing this - it seems different from anything else Zach has done in the past. I imagine he'll promote this with a tour - but I'm hoping that Rage Against The Machine will do some shows in the fall around the time of the election. In related news, I hear Tom Morello has finished his second album as The Nightwatchman, and this one is a bit more rocking than the first one. 

ON THE SOLO TIP...

Zach de la Rocha has finally wrapped up his solo album, according to Billboard. I wonder what will be on the album: in the years since Rage Against The Machine split, Zach was rumored to be working with Trent Reznor, ?uestlove, and a couple of other people. So there could be tracks from a whole bunch of different producers. Zach's only actually released one track, "They Want It All," from the Farenheit 911 soundtrack (that song was produced by Trent).

I was lucky enough to see Zach with Rage this summer at the Rock The Bells festival, and they were a force of nature . Just incredible. Tom Morello seems to be enjoying doing his folk thing as The Nightwatchman... but it would be great if Rage stuck together - at least touring and recording singles, if not full albums - allowing the members to concentrate on their own projects. But, come election time, it would be great to have Rage on the road.

Meanwhile, I already wrote about the Into The Wild soundtrack, which is essentially Eddie Vedder's solo debut. I hear he may do a solo tour for the album. I've seen Eddie solo twice - once at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, and once opening for The Who. He was great, and I think it was fun for him - as it would be for anyone in a band for such a long time - to do something a bit different. At those shows, he pretty much mixed covers with a couple of Pearl Jam tunes. It would be cool to see him do some of the songs frmo Into The Wild, it's a good album.