#80 “blues for tomorrow” for mike kelley It was the little houses on the little streets built into what used to be fields outside the city limits, the brave new world of the real estate developers & the bankers & the advertising industry where a nation of perfect consumers could be born & bred into relative plenty, & live in safety with people of their own kind & no one else, with a job for everyone & the good schools filled with little white faces & the shopping malls packed with irresistible products & the only reasonable place to take a walk, a home for every gradation of income level & occupation so a family could move up to the next suburb with every $2000 increase in annual pay— they filled the little houses on the little streets in the little towns erected beyond the city limits until there were 3 million of them in the little houses & more than half of detroit was abandoned & the factories closed & the jobs were taken away from its citizens & life disintegrated & the desolation spread throughout the city but it stopped at the city limits while the suburbs thrived for the next 40 years & the city fell apart completely— & of the children of the suburbs few would escape the vice of consumption that gripped the little houses to return to the city to seek what was lost & try to understand what had happened to the america of legend, the land of the free, now reduced to an ugly caricature of itself where the consumer was simplified & degraded along with the product like burroughs said— few would attempt to reverse the vicious course of modern life & follow the old trails back into the city to make a life with art at its heart & a head for the future & compassion for the victims instead of hatred & respect for the differences instead of fear & loathing— turning it around, taking it back, reclaiming their humanity, taking it back, dismantling the little house, taking it back, taking it all back where it belongs —amsterdam september 17/ london september 22-24, 2010 from always know: a book of monk © 2010 john sinclair. all rights reserved.

Detroit Beat-Down for Sundiata O.M. & Norm Talley Ya know, people been gettin’ beat down ever since history began, & it’s still the same all over the world even in Century 21— They beatin’ down & beatin’ down & beatin’ down on us all the mother-fucking day Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down Ya know it’s bad all over & it ain’t never nothin’ nice: They beat us for our little money, They beat us on the rent, & every day we got to hustle just to make our little ends meet— ’cause they beatin’ down & beatin’ down & beatin’ down all the mother-fucking day Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down But there ain’t no beat-down like the Detroit Beat-Down nowhere else in the world— They beat you down all day, They beat you down at night, They always got their foots right up there in your ass— Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, They beatin’ down & beatin’ down & beatin’ down on us all day Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down They took away the jobs, They took all the money out, They abandoned more than half the houses & miles of empty stores, They ripped off the future & left this once great city in ruins— ’Cuz they beatin’ down & beatin’ down & beatin’ down on us all day Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, They don’t never go away The Detroit Beat-Down, it don’t never stop, They got us comin’ & goin’, ain’t no way to get ahead, The Detroit Beat-Down, it just don’t never go away— Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down, day after mother-fucking day Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down But we got another Detroit Beat-Down comin’ up this way: We gonna beat you with the conga drum, We gonna beat you with the bass, We gonna beat you with the hi-hat, We put this beat up in your face— Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down, every day Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Ain’t nothin’ we can do but play So we gonna make our music, We gonna beat our drums, We got saxophones & trumpets, We got keyboards & guitars, We got turntables & computers, & we just won’t never go away— We got that Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Detroit Beat-Down every day Detroit Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, Beat-Down, We got that Detroit Beat-Down Beat-Down, Beat-Down, & we won’t never go away We got that Detroit Beat-Down Beat & we won’t never go away —Detroit July 21-22/July 30, 2003/ August 11, 2003 [CD Version]

“Just One Big Heart” for Michael Erlewine On August 2, 1969, at the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival, the Howlin’ Wolf told the young Michael Erlewine: “I’m lookin’ for a man walkin’ down the street with no head on his body. He gonna come down sooner or later. That’s right. He will have no head & be all heart, just one big heart. “These performers probably have the biggest hearts in the entertainment business, & there were 30 or 40 thousand kids here trying to learn about heart, about understanding, about developing their hearts. “Thousands of hippies, hipped up children, with great big heads & tiny hearts, trying to lose that big head & get that big heart. The big head & the hard heart of modern rock & roll & psychedelic music has gone as far as it will go. The heart just has to be developed. “I’m not a smart man. You see, I got a little head & a big heart. Because blues is based on the common ground shared by all people, black & white, young & old. Blues is the story of the human life, of its loves & struggles. All rock & roll, all jazz, all American music finds its roots in gospel music & in blues. Blues is not unhappy music. “I’m not a smart man. You see, I got a little head & a big heart. That’s all I need. You take people — when they got a big head, they don’t make it far. I don’t mean to be funny, but if you let me, I’ll show you, & tell you, if you will accept it. But if you think because I’m a Negro, & you’re not supposed to be told nothin’, you understand, you’re wrong. You’re supposed to be told somethin’ by anybody when you’re doin’ wrong. Somebody can always tell you something. I don’t have no education, see. Now you can take my sense & put it in a paper bag & it’ll rattle like two nickels. But you see, understandin’, that’s all I need. Common sense, that’s all a man needs now— common sense. Just get you some common sense & pass on by.” —Edited & arranged by John Sinclair Detroit May 30, 2003/ Rochester NY January 18, 2007

#84 "rhythm-a-ning" for paul lichter & the great ernie harwell it's the top of the 5th, two men on & monk on the mound to face the meat of the defending champion new york tenors batting order--it's the rhythm inning, time now to get something going--& at the plate for the tenors, digging in deep now, center fielder sonny rollins (also known as 'newk' for his remarkable resemblance to the great don newcombe) is taking his cuts. rollins checks the sign from arnett cobb at 3rd & takes a called first strike right down the middle. on the basepaths, the leadoff batter, johnny griffin, dances off 2nd & james moody takes a short lead off of 1st. on deck, the clean-up hitter, fellow native of north carolina, veteran of many hard seasons in the minor leagues, john coltrane picks up his bat, weights it, & pounds the air without mercy. monk checks the runners, shakes off the sign from art blakey behind the plate, nods, stretches & delivers a most wicked curve & newk strikes air. the fans know if monk can get past rollins there'll be one down, coltrane up & coleman hawkins waiting on deck. so monk looks in, puts that rocky mount grip on the ball, & sends newk back to the bench with a deadly screwball. trane fans, & bean dribbles one down to john birks gillespie at 1st. diz steps on the bag & monk puts another inning away toward an eventual shut-out of the defending champs. in the bottom of the 8th, miles davis is hit by a pitch, steals 2nd, bud powell draws an in- tentional pass, & bird puts the game away with a 3-run homer. the series goes to the challengers, the bebop all-stars, 4 games to 3 & monk is voted most valuable player over dizzy gillespie in the closest of votes. the year is 1954, the legendary "subway series" is now history, & baseball, dear friends, will never be the same —detroit may 1, 1985 special thanks to peter klaver & martin gross

#97 “everything happens to me” for mark ritsema all my life I’ve paid & paid, until my dues card is punched up on all 4 sides, a child of relative privilege who chose to ‘take the way of the lowest’— beatnik, dope fiend, poet provocateur, race traitor & renegade, living from hand to mouth & euro to euro, sleeping on the couches & extra beds of my friends, a man without a country & a post office box in new orleans for a permanent address, a pre-pay vodafone & a laptop computer, one suitcase stuffed with clothing & a bag full of manuscripts & hand-burnt cds— to keep my head straight & my heart right to keep up my travels & carry on the struggle into another new year, taking my little verses & great big world outlook everywhere people will have me —amsterdam january 7, 2004/ rotterdam january 15, 2004

"dance of the infidels" after bud powell grinding. the dancers out of faith with the music. won't listen to it. bouncing up & down, out of time, clap their hands on 1 & 3. (bodies grind to- gether. the "dance." the musicians stand in awe of them, the in- fidels, as they tear up the ground. pure anarchy. (we watch & egg them on. what do they have to do with us, who can "really shake 'em down." do you love me.) do they love us. does it matter. we play out our songs, while the dancers grind down the day. they can't hear us. their ears are on the bottoms of their feet, & are ground down by the dance —berkeley, california july 13, 1965

"Sendin' The Vipers" Way back in the day when marijuana was something people smoked in Mexico or Mexicans brought with them to the United States & smoked quietly amongst themselves there were musicians in New Orleans & Los Angeles & Chicago who were introduced to weed by their Mexican friends & began to apply its magical properties to the shaping of the new music just then beginning to emerge from deep within the hearts & minds of a new generation of Americans born after the Emancipation of the slaves & on or around the turning of a new century propelled by electricity & charged with the promise of a wild new kind of individual freedom— Way back in the day when the music that would be called jazz first issued forth from the trumpets & drums of musicians in New Orleans who knew how to make people dance & took the music with them to Los Angeles in 1912 & Chicago a couple of years later & Joe "King" Oliver & his Creole Jazz Band came up from New Orleans to pack the cabarets & nightclubs of the South Side of Chicago with the sound of jazz & set the tempo for the development of the music for everyone who followed them & in 1922 Joe Oliver called up Louis Armstrong to join him in Chicago & set the whole world on fire with their brilliant improvisations & the unbridled power of swing —New Orleans November 1998