3

I can only dream of the day when Radiohead’s Thom Yorke comes to Massachusetts for a Jill Stein / Green-Rainbow Party benefit concert, and breaks out three new songs for the occasion. I have a fond memory of Yorke during the 2000 presidential elections, holding up a “Let Ralph Debate” sign on the stage of Saturday Night Live at the end of the show when the whole cast mingles.

Well, part way to my dream, Yorke played a benefit concert last month for UK Green Party candidate Tony Juniper, Cambridge (be sure to also check out UK Green candidate Caroline Lucas who apparently has a better shot — in Brighton — at winning a seat in Parliament)

Check out Yorke’s stunning “The Daily Mail” and two more below the jump. If you want some background read this.

Any ideas for how to get Yorke here? I mean, he’s touring the states real soon, and playing Boston April 8th (SOLD OUT, $50-a-pop plus service charges), but what about a Jill Stein / Green-Rainbow Party fundraiser?

3 Comments

  1. michael horan

    Others should be seduced.

    Including local bands. And I don’t mean coffeehouse stuff. Punk, metal, and, esp, hip-hop. Rather than running the staid and stodgy style campaigns everyone else does, the party that breaks the ideological mode should break the established campaign mode as well.

    I think my all-time favorite show–and it’s a tough call–may well have been Patti Smith doing an impromptu gig downstairs at the Middle East on behalf of Ralph in ’04. (The second best would have been Patti playing at the old Palladium in NY on New Year’s Eve 1976.). I’d love to see her do a Green tour, supporting a few candidates throughout New England.

    That said, I’d like to see bands a good deal younger than Patti–and the aging Mr Yorke, for that matter–engaged. The GRP is moving, uhh, rather slowly in cultivating an image that appeals to mainstream young folks.

    Think this way: I’m 22, mostly apolitical, but with a couple of pet causes of my own (and guess what they are). How you gonna reach me, excite me?

  2. Patrick Burke

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…

    That gives a decent view of the number of Massachusetts bands that could be tapped.  Hell even my native Westfield has a number of rather popular bands hailing from it, mostly hardcore bands.  And then there are the various underground and above ground scenes of musicians that could really liven up the face of politics.  Rock on!

    • eli_beckerman

      … for what a grassroots large-scale (sure, filling the Middle East is something we should do, but let’s go all out!) concert / benefit / political rally could do. Let’s figure out a way to sell out the TD Garden!

      Maybe we could do back-to-back New York / Boston shows for Jill and for Rosa Clemente and tap her Hip Hop network — I’m broke and I’d drop $100 see Dead Prez and Thom Yorke share a stage!

      Question: Are there any Red Sox or Celtics or Patriots players that are politicized enough to support a Green candidate for Governor? What about Yankees, Knicks, or Jets/Giants players who would support Rosa Clemente? Might be fun to play with the rivalry stuff (and to dig up a Green version of Curt Schilling).

      Anyway, I don’t think Nader’s rallies could be called stodgy, or repeating something like it.

Leave a Reply