I can't really believe that it is already October! The great and fantastic Siouxsie Sioux has a new album out today. What a great way to start the month off right. Just saying her name out loud gets me all excited and nostalgic. I can't really imagine growing up without Siouxsie, Morrissey, and Robert Smith. It seriously scares me to think what would have happened to all of us without their music. Siouxsie really helped me become who I am today. She also influenced hundreds of artists and bands that followed her. She just turned 50 years old this year and she still is as relevant and talented today as the day she started. The new album is "Mantaray." It is actually her first solo album. The last Siouxsie & the Banshees album, "Rapture," was released over ten years ago in 1995. Siouxsie and Budgie have been performing as The Creatures for the last decade or so. The last Creatures album "Hai!" came out in 2003. She has since parted ways with Budgie and is now recording and performing as just Siouxsie.

The artwork for the new album is fantastic. And the songs are fantastic as well. This is not a Siouxsie & the Banshees album. But it is most definitely a Siouxsie album. Her deep recognizable voice is as powerful as ever. The album has been out for a couple weeks as an import. But her new label "Decca" is bringing us the album out domestically today. I am always worried when I listen to the new album of one of my favorite artists. Although, she really is just competing with herself. Nobody else can really compare to the brilliance of Siouxsie. But with such an amazing history and catalog of albums, it is really hard to put out a new album that can compare to her old ones. Her albums and songs with the Banshees are such a part of my musical upbringing and history that it really makes it even harder to compete with those memories. How do you put out an album that can even compare? Siouxsie has really done it. She has not tried to capture the brilliance of her albums with the Banshees. She also could have tried to create some super modern trendy album. But instead she creates something all her own. She has never been one to just simply fit into one simple genre. She may have helped to define what became goth music. But the Banshees were never simply a goth band. Her music has always been a combination of punk, glam, goth, new wave, experimental, electronica, world music, and art rock. The first single off the album is "Into A Swan." It is a fantastic little song with a great little video to go along with it. But there is so much else that is great on this album. I can't wait to hear these songs live when she performs them out on the next tour. I could not be more proud and excited that Siouxsie has not let us down. She is still very much the Siouxsie we all grew up with and fell in love with.

I woke up in an odd mood and while I was grinding   coffee this morning, for some unknown reason, I  started thinking about the legendary folk musician
Woody Guthrie and that sign he often painted on his
guitar.

“This Machine Kills Fascists”

And no, I don’t mean my  Italian espresso maker …

In this frame of mind, I don’t even dare open the paper … not today.

Woody once wrote, "I took a bath this morning in six war speeches, and a sprinkle of peace.”  

Yeah, I know that mood.

I’m thinking, what could throw me even deeper into this funk?  Maybe the right song and I can revel in this shithole state of mind for a while; I do have the morning  to myself!

So I went digging though a few boxes of 45’s  for this minor keyed, slow funky version of  “This Land Is  Your Land” by Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings originally released in 2006 as a 7-inch single with a red, white, and blue label (and a flip side of  What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?). It’s a masterpiece, if not the modern definitive version of Woody Guthrie’s classic paean to the America he saw in his travels in the 1930’s. Guthrie originally wrote this song in 1940 in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," which Guthrie considered unrealistic, self-satisfied and smug.

Sharon Jones’ version of This Land should be the one sung in grammar schools, especially since she includes the seldom sung verses about private property and government relief. She’s brought back the anger, the defiance and rebelliousness that had been lost; trashing the soft-pedaled, whitewashed, yankee-doodle dandy edition we’ve heard for decades.