From Woody to here ...

The first music that made any sense to me was punk sometime back in 1978. In particular, it was the aspect of giving a social commentary and consciousness that I identified with. In hindsight, there was as much manufactured punk as there was true genius but band like Stiff Little Fingers and the Clash are as relevant today as they were when I first heard them over thirty years ago.

It took me a while to work back to the roots but I reckon what made punk great began with the likes of Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston – continued through Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl - all of whom were in trouble suffered censorship by the media and governments of the day. The list could go on but the important thing to me is the seamless connection to folks knowing the difference between what is right and what is plain wrong and singing about it and making the rest of us think ...even just a little bit is better than nothing.

Which takes me to the present – over the last year of so, I have been listening to the likes of Frank Turner, Chuck Ragan and most recently Tim Barry. Do your own research on these guys ...go and see them live - the tradition continues.