Denise Sullivan

Author, Arts & Cultural Reporter and Worker

August 28, 2025 • 2:41 pm 0

Eyes on the Prize + Big Crime

Sixty two years ago today, when Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Len Chandler gathered onstage to sing “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, conditions world and nationwide were less than ideal and in many cases grim. And yet, the mass gathering of people of all ages, ethnicities, and beliefs, the speech by Dr. King, and all that singing of freedom songs, delivered a sense of hope that the world could mend and change.

Baez has continued to sing for liberation causes. Though she’s announced her retirement, she shows up to Bay Area protests and events to lend her voice, from the stage and from the crowd. Dylan isn’t so much a protest singer anymore as something more: A Nobel laureate. Chandler died an activist and freedom singer, on this day in 2023. He used his voice to raise money for progressive candidates and causes until the end.

In today’s top news in protest music, last night, Neil Young performed a new song, “Big Crime,” live for the first time with his band, the Chrome Hearts. Young has been very much on the front line of street protest this time around and uses his voice as a performer to fight fascism. He has particularly waged a fight against his music being used for commercial ventures and especially preventing it from being co-opted by the right.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gbK8uoqKhlACSeenUPkFQ

Fifty five years ago, following the massacre of four unarmed students by Ohio’s National Guard at Kent State University on May 4, Young famously wrote “Ohio,” recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Young has of course made some missteps in his political action though for the most part, he has been on the people’s side, in favor of environmental wellness, human rights and against wars.

On the heels of the life-changing events at Kent State, Devo — first a concept, then a band — formed. With a point of view, something to say, Devo attempted not to lose sight of what it meant to remind us: that humankind has been heading in the wrong direction for some time and the devolution we were warned about is upon us (A new documentary on the group tells that story very well). That members of Devo were also present on that day at Kent State and collaborators with Young was no coincidence: They are artists interested in bringing the news.

That both styles of music, the old guard and the new, reached me at the right time of life, as a young person seeking answers through songs, makes me a lucky listener. I’m always listening for messages in songs, as well as appreciating music for the sheer joy and beauty it brings into the mixed bag of life. Throughout the ’80s, ‘90s and ’00s, there was plenty to protest and music from which to choose, from Dylan, Young, Devo and countless others: Punk resisted right-wingism and racism and so did hip hop. Public Enemy’s Chuck D rightly nailed it when he noted rap and hip hop were broadcasting the news from Black America. The long history of resistance music spans the globe and will not be silenced. It’s just that sometimes, the noise of the news is so loud, it’s harder to hear the music. Once in awhile, a song or video cuts through (insert your favorite here).

From 2007-2011 I worked on a book about the different strands of resistance music and how the form was faring at the turn of the 21st Century. It seemed to me to be a latent period for American protest movement and music. But then, the revival: Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter put organizing and the music that goes with it, back into the public consciousness. You might even say the movements were a wake-up call after a long slumber that included the invasion of Iraq, the bail out of the banks and an increased awareness of police brutality because of phones and social media broadcasting the horrors. That’s a pretty offhand, incomplete characterization of those years, but if you’re reading this, you have a general idea of what I’m talking about, even if I don’t…

Yet this is to say: This is why we don’t stop. This is what is meant by keeping one’s eyes on the prize. This is why I am writing this today, on the anniversary of the March and on the day after Young debuted a new protest song. We are no longer on the precipice…we are immersed. The need for protest and the music that goes with it in this country has never gone away. There have been and always will be artists like Tom Morello and M.I.A. and Chris Pierce and Jesse Wells and Carsie Blanton, out there getting the job done. When a new song drops in the heat of a moment, by an artist old or young or in the middle, I’m always pleased to hear it, as a fan of music with a desire for change. It’s a chance to pause and say thanks to everyone who is unafraid to take a stand. Today, it’s thanks to Neil, for staying in the game. As a song, “Big Crime” is unlikely to change the world or become an anthem, but then, again, we don’t know what will. We simply have to believe in a more hopeful future and be willing to work toward it.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-war, video, , , , , , ,

April 30, 2021 • 9:47 pm 0

Tongo Eisen-Martin: The revolution is live

Today April 30, marks the end of National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month. The bookend to my April 1 post on musician, poet, and literary artist Gil Scott-Heron is in tribute to Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco’s newly appointed poet laureate, and a multidisciplinary artist in his own right. Eisen-Martin’s inaugural address and the reading he curated for the occasion was live-streamed on April 22 by the San Francisco Public Library in cooperation with local literary institutions, City Lights Books and Litquake. You can watch the entire 90 minute program here:

Please be patient as I am only just now realizing the how and why of Eisen-Martin’s standing as a natural torch-bearer for a modern style of poetry the likes of which Scott-Heron forged and the performing hip hop poets of the ’90s brought back into vogue: Both Eisen-Martin, like Scott-Heron, make substantive use of revolutionary rhetoric and their dead serious lived experience as Black men in America. While rooted in Black experience, the content expresses a profoundly deep love of and want for liberation of all oppressed peoples which leads with the dismantling of the structure of a capitalist society built on white supremacy, the one we historically and presently inhabit. That’s a lot for some folks, I know. There is also a spiritual core to the content that veers from the satirical to the surreal, all of it of a piece with its message.

Scott-Heron famously followed in the footsteps of his inspiration Langston Hughes, and Eisen-Martin has direct links to that lineage of jazz and blues poets: I’m not going to give away the hand, so if you’re interested you can dig around on your own and make the connections.

Though familiar as I am with Scott-Heron’s work, and in the several hours I’ve talked poetry and in the many more spent reading and listening to Eisen-Martin, Scott-Heron didn’t come up. Why? Well, Gil is the poet most often checked when people not-so-well-acquainted with poetry, Black poets, hip hop, Black music or Black Arts think of the first time they hear Eisen-Martin at work: I didn’t want to be that person, so I didn’t say so. Besides, that, I knew Eisen-Martin was more likely to name revolutionary, feminist, activist poet Audre Lorde, as someone he’d read widely and revered; that he’d studied with scholar Manning Marable, who’s written extensively on Malcolm X, and that he has appreciation for a spectrum of music, from Handy to Hendrix. But anyone who’s a regular at Eisen-Martin’s virtual readings will have noticed the image tacked to wall of his Zoom background: A picture of Scott-Heron, preaching to thousands.

For his inaugural event, friends, family, fans and San Francisco poet laureates emeritas Janice Mirikitani, devorah major and Kim Shuck were in attendance as Eisen-Martin passed the virtual mic to a cast of extraordinary poets, their work helping to give him his start and sustain him: They were, in no particular order here, his brother, Biko Eisen-Martin; early supporter, Marc Bamuthi Joseph; running mates during his New York years, Jive Poetic, Anthony Morales and Mahogany L. Browne, and the local network upon his Bay Area return: poet Joyce Lee, community organizer Uncle Damien and Alie Jones, co-founder of his newly established independent publishing house, Black Freighter Press. All contributed to making the poet and his inaugural event unprecedented in its power and presence. The humility of Eisen-Martin, and all of the poets, their collective ability to be attentive to each other’s work as they prepared to respond then perform their own considerable pieces without any interruption to their respective flows was part of the revelation. The intensely personal and political content was extraordinary, alive with excellence, contributing to the livestream’s immediacy, prescience and what will be its staying power: It was epic, in all respects. These poets of the Bay Area and beyond are the voices of the here and now, speaking to our precarious times, to neverending police violence and murder of Black people, and the everlasting oppression of indigenous people, women and the environment – matters that impact all people – delivered through Black (and Brown) lenses.

I hope readers of this space will set aside time to listen to the 90 necessary and critical minutes archived here, so that you may see and hear what we are doing here in San Francisco under Eisen-Martin’s steady guidance. “It’s the best decision this country ever made,” said Mahogany L. Browne of Mayor London Breed’s appointment of Eisen-Martin. “You’re a soul survivor – you are the best of us,” said brother Biko Eisen-Martin. ”Tongo might be the greatest poet of our generation but he’s a very, very good man,” said Marc Bamuthi Joseph in an introduction that also served as a lead up to a piece in which he conjured the life, slow death and words of Gil Scott-Heron.

And so the month ends where we began it: The revolution is in good hands.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Book news, Poetry, video, , ,

May 4, 2020 • 6:23 pm 2

Come Back Little Stevie (for JW)

It’s been years since I saw you at Gilbert’s El Indio

We waved but I didn’t stay. It was clear you were in deep

They say I wouldn’t recognize you so I’ve kept my vision pure

Giddy, ridiculous, sun bombed, self-conscious, unselfconscious

Like Stevie

Back then, we knew everything there was to know about

Everything

You couldn’t tell us

Anything

We hadn’t yet left home or done much

But we were destined

For the big screen and magazines

You knew the names of all the actors and the models, even the minor ones

Patti Hanson, Kim Alexis

I committed it all to memory. Documenting the rise. I’d write your bio, say I knew you when

We were 15 but said we were 16, just so we could work

At Woolworths

I thought you were smart, had things wired

And you did

Until the switch flipped

I don’t know when you found trouble or how it found you

These things have gone wrong since the dawn of time,

Or at least since the dawn of 7-11 parking lots

But we who belong to the sisterhood of checked-out mothers, stay at home mothers, gone to the club mothers, corporate executive at the bar mothers, overwhelmed by life and death and disappointed by life and divorce mothers, hooked on their own unique blend of white wine and Valium mothers, frozen in time mothers, younger than we are now that some of us are grandmothers mothers are here

And we love you

So tell us

Is it over now? And

Do you know how

To pick up the pieces and go home?

Filed under: Poetry, rock 'n' roll, video, Women in Rock, , , , , , , , , ,

December 25, 2018 • 7:40 pm 0

A Very Merry Christmas

Holiday greetings:  This post is adapted annually for your reading pleasure.

Some time in New York City, 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono came up with a Christmas song for the ages, its subject peace on earth during wartime, its melody extraordinarily similar to “Stewball,” a hoary folk song about a racehorse. Behind its veil of bluegrass, “Stewball” has deep roots plus class and race resonances, but only a tangential connection to the “Happy Xmas” song (if you’ve got the time to delve into these matters, there’s more where this came from, including clips and further linkage).

In his final major interview, Lennon explained, “‘Happy Christmas’ Yoko and I wrote together. It says, ‘War is over if you want it.’ It was still that same message—the idea that we’re just as responsible as the man who pushes the button. As long as people imagine that, somebody’s doing it to them and they have no control, then they have no control.” Lennon and Ono had used the slogan “War Is Over! (If You Want It)” in their 1969 billboard campaign that sold peace to the people just as aggressively as consumer goods and war were promoted in the public sphere.

Recorded in October at the Record Plant and assisted by producer Phil Spector, the Plastic Ono Band (who for this session included Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins, and Hugh McCracken) were joined by the children of the Harlem Community Choir (they sing, “War is over if you want it”). The single was released in the US on December 6th and held until the following November of 1972 for release in the UK.

Spector’s influence is clear—you can hear his signature claustrophobic effects, similar to those on the Paris Sisters’ “I Love How You Love Me” and the Teddy Bears’ “To Know Him Is to Love Him.”  But there is another ghost of rock and roll past in the room: The song borrows the feeling and the melody of “Pledging My Love” by Johnny Ace, a well- known Lennon favorite.

As for the slogan War is Over, the Doors had previously  used it in their 1968 anti-war song, “Unknown Solider” as had W.S. Merwin in his anti-Vietnam poem, “When the War Is Over,” published in 1967.  “Happy Xmas” bears traces of all the aforementioned melodies and influences, in addition to their somber moods, along with the note-for-note cadence of “Stewball.” Opening with a whisper to their children from whom they were estranged at the time (“Happy Christmas Kyoko, Happy Christmas Julian”), the lyrics open with a rather pointed question (“And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?”) and wishes for a better world to follow. All is forgiven by the final uplift.

The persecution of peacenik Lennon as well as his end have been well-documented; Ono continues to work for peace and against gun violence and nearly 50 years since its release, their seasonal single and collaboration has taken on a life of its own.

 

 

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, rock 'n' roll, video, , , ,

September 15, 2018 • 10:01 am 1

Remembering 4 Little Girls + 2 Songs

It was 55 years years ago that the four Birmingham, Alabama girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, lost their lives during the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.  In 2011, a marker was finally dedicated in their names at the site of the vicious, racially motivated attack.

Just three months after the murder of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, and two weeks after the March on Washington and Dr. King’s momentum-building “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, the Alabama tragedy became the pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. Singer Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in immediate response to hearing the news:“I shut myself up in a room and that song happened,” she said of the song that begins, “Alabama’s got me so upset.”  From that moment forward, Simone was committed to writing and performing material that would jolt people awake or into action.  It remains her most enduring work.

Joan Baez,  had of course walked alongside Dr. King at the marches in the South all along; her tribute was a recording of “Birmingham Sunday” by her brother-in-law, the writer Richard Fariña.  Each girl was remembered by name in the verses, set to the tune of a beautiful folk melody. Fifty-five years on, both songs remain painful reminders of the brutalities waged here and yonder, year in and year out, by so-called humanity.

0:04 / 4:08

 

Filed under: Civil Rights, Obituary, video, , , , , , , ,

July 20, 2017 • 4:03 pm 0

Amadou & Mariam: Visionary Mali Music

From Ali Farka Touré to Tinariwen, the music of Mali is as diverse as that of the US. This summer, one of the country’s finest combos, the rock/electronic/blues duo Amadou & Mariam, return to the states for a series of shows. For this month’s column in Tourworthy, I capsulize their history and speak to some of their collaborations with alternative musicians around the world.  I also talk to noted disability scholar, Leroy Moore Jr. about the realities of musicians from Africa touring with disabilities (Amadou & Mariam are both legally blind).  Take a look and listen to the couple’s new single, “Bofou Safou,” and link to the full story here.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Blues, column, cross cultural musical experimentation, Mali, video, , ,

May 30, 2017 • 3:39 pm 0

Shonen Knife Keeps Going and Going

Formed in 1981 in Osaka, Japan, Shonen Knife, founded by sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano are still going strong. Cheered to hear of the pop-punk band’s recent US tour dates which they dubbed The Ramen Adventure Tour, I’m reprinting a portion of an interview with Naoko which appears in my book, Rip It Up: Rock ‘n’ Roll Rulebreakers.   20151214-181016-466913.jpg

Three Japanese women named after a brand of penknife seem the unlikely embodiment of punk rock, yet Shonen Knife may be among the genre’s last rebels.  The power trio makes a pop-punk noise comparable to the Ramones, and counts Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, and the former members of Nirvana among their fans.  But after six albums, fifty singles, and more than ten years together, in 1995, the band was headed stateside in search of a record deal, having cut all management and US label ties.

“We didn’t have enough control, so we quit,” explains guitarist, songwriter and group leader, Naoko Yamano, at home in Osaka.  She was due on the West Coast in a few days, where she intended to test the waters and play a couple of dates with a newly organized Shonen Knife.  “We have about twenty new songs, and we’ve demoed all of them. Our shows in America are going to be our showcase to play our songs and find a record company.” She reels off the new titles:  “‘ESP’ is about people who have extra power, ‘Explosion!’ is about anger, ‘Buddah’s Face’…how he looks at you as if you’ve gone too far this time.”

The band’s album prior to its split with Virgin Records,  Rock Animals, had a metal-lite sound and hellbent for leather meets Spinal Tap graphics that may’ve given the wrong impression to listeners.

“I love hard rock and punk,” says Naoko.  “Hard rock has the spirit of punk.  But I think our managers may have pushed things in the wrong direction…”

Shonen Knife are true fans of rock and quite simply aren’t afraid to let their enthusiasm shine. They’ve played ’60s pop, psychedelic rock, Asian pop, reggae, Motown, ’80s punk and more.  As natural musicians they’ve diversified and developed technically. Nevertheless, the Knife have been teased mercilessly, often by otherwise intelligent male critics, who note they “can’t play,” that they are “cute,” and have “funny accents:” The criticisms betray a wild misunderstanding of what it means to be “of the Knife.”

The members of Shonen Knife came of age at a time when forming a rock band was a serious transgression for girls in Japanese society; they’ve since toured the world, including a stint opening for Nirvana, and remain duty-bound to their mission.

“Shonen Knife is our life’s work,” Naoko says of a vow taken by the women long ago.  “It is equal to ourselves.  So we will do it as long as we live.”

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Punk, video, Women in Rock, , ,

April 22, 2017 • 1:26 am 0

Happy Earth Day

Filed under: video, , , ,

April 21, 2017 • 9:52 pm 0

Back On The Chain Gang

Dear Readers,

It’s an unusual post where I want to send you away from my site and toward another, but that’s the case this evening…As it happens, I’m back on the rock ‘n’ roll beat and want to point you to a couple of publications where my work is now playing:

Last week, a group of former colleagues launched No Recess! a music and culture site that aims to bring you some good reading on rock ‘n’ roll, resistance, and whatever else they feel like.

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Check my contributions, a column titled What Are We Gonna Do Now? and subtitled Rock and Resist or Rollover.  I also contribute a book review of the new autobiography by the Band’s Robbie Robertson.   And here’s a film review of I Called Him Morgan), and a news brief (an item on John Hurt Jr.)

I’m also filing a monthly column over at Tourworthy.  My first piece is on the Latino psychedelic soulsters with a message, Chicano Batman.   I hope you’ll look deeper into these new publications and lend them your eyes (and ears) as they keep you up-to-date on the sounds that matter, on the music that’s making a difference. As ever, thanks for reading!

Filed under: Protest Songs, rock 'n' roll, video, You Read It Here First

February 18, 2017 • 9:59 pm 1

Three Women: Yoko Ono, Buffy Sainte-Marie & Nina Simone

Coincidence or likely story, three of the great freedom singers of our time, Yoko Ono, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Nina Simone were born on nearly consecutive days in February.

 

Yoko Ono is of course a conceptual artist, a recording artist, a peace activist, wife of the late John Lennon and mother of Sean Ono Lennon. Born on February 18 in Tokyo, at 84, Ono remains a working artist and advocate for peace and human rights.

Born on February 20, 1941, Buffy Sainte-Marie turns 76 this year.  She is still a vital recording and touring artist, fronting a band, and waging peace and freedom, particularly for the First Nations people of North America.

Though she passed on in 2003 at the age of 70, North Carolinian and world citizen Nina Simone continues to win over listeners with her unique vocal and composition style and revolution rhetoric that truly remains unmatched since her prolific ’60s and ’70s period. Though she adapted her songbook as times changed, Simone kept it fierce and strong until breast cancer took her off the road in her 60s. She would have turned 84 on February 22.

All three women hold unique distinctions as pioneering vocal stylists and composers of depth and substance—pro-woman, anti-war and anti-racist—which found them as revered as they are reviled.  Yet those of us who appreciate the work, who lived in times that crossed with theirs, who were lucky enough to have seen them perform or simply feel the enormity of their contributions to the modern music canon shall pause, listen, and give thanks in the coming days that these three extraordinary 20th Century women were born.

Read more on Ono, Sainte-Marie and Simone in Keep on Pushing:  Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop.

 

Filed under: anti-war, Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Nina Simone, Protest Songs, Rock Birthdays, video, Women in Rock,

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