Crooks

This week marks the 218th anniversary of the New York Stock Exchange. It also is the 37th anniversary of the start of the Senate hearings on the Watergate scandal. This week in 1896 the Supreme Court endorsed the concept of 'Separate But Equal.' Anne Boleyn was decapitated this week in 1536 and Dan White was convicted of killing Harvey Milk in 1971.

So this playlist is all about crooks.

Frankie & Albert - Mississippi Joe Callicot
Legendary for his pickin', this version is a little rough. Sounds like it was recorded on the porch of Mississippi John's shack. You can hear his long fingers playing across the strings, his thumb pulsing to the bass line as he tells the story of Frankie and her cheatin' man, Albert and the desperate straits his infidelity takes her to. I have a hell of a time understanding him over his southern drawl -- I thought he was saying "grandma" and not "bartender" for months -- but there's a certain pain in his voice that makes the intention of the song explicit.

A word on the link: You'll only hear about 30 seconds when you click that play button on Last... but they're among the most important 30 in the whole of the song

Staggolee - Pacific Gas & Electric
Stack Lee, Stagger Lee, Staggolee, Stack, Stag.... he has many names but it's the same legend. Stack Lee shot Billy Lyons, a bartender at a saloon. Nick Cave's version has him a bloodthirsty sociopath, The Black Keys make him a violent scumsucker. I like this version, you might recognize it from Quentin Tarantino's Deathproof. While it's fun and poppy, it also paints Staggolee as the mythical man he has become. He's so bad he can take on the devil. That only happens in stories of legend. PG&E revels in it. They celebrate the legend of Stack Lee with this bouncy piece of Americana.

Killing - Moses Atwood
I think that learning to think in Shades of Gray is one of the more important things you can do with your life. Moses proves he can do that by telling the story of a sympathetic killer. Everyone has a price and as times get more desperate, that price drops. The 'hero' of this story doesn't repent, he knows he's done wrong. He's just asking that you understand. That you acknowledge that if you were in his shoes, you'd be a killer, too. I hear one Ms. Aly Spaltro does a fairly brillig cover.

Crooks - D. Gross
Last fall, as the health insurance reform debate loomed and banks were collapsing like houses made of cards (or perhaps matchsticks), Dana introduced this song one Thursday night with a little preface about how disgusted he was by the nation's highest paid business leaders. That intro stuck with me and made me listen to Crooks in a wholly different way. I hear that there's condemnation but there's more. There's an attempt to understand the Crooks. That's what's intriguing. Dana can't let them not be human, there's got to be something human about them and he's trying to find it.

The Big Three Killed My Baby - The White Stripes
Frustrated rage at the company that both made and destroyed entire generations. Entire cities. Look at Detroit now, killed because of The Big Three. About eight or nine months ago while Ford, GM and Chrysler were all struggling with the losses they were suffering and stomping all over their employees - they only people who would conceivably support them in face of their massive greed - I couldn't help but think of this song. Predating the automotive collapse by nearly a decade, it seems prophetic until you look at Detroit and the history of the working man in these companies. The energy, the rawness and the distortion capture a lot of anger and frustration. It's an emotional testament to the end of an era in American automotives.

Posted by Krister