The Black Crowes are angry at country crooner Gretchen Wilson. Wilson’s song “Work Hard, Play Harder” is said to be copying the Crowes 1991 hit “Jealous Again” so the guys have filed a copyright infringement suit against her.

The two songs are VERY similar but who knows? Check it for yoself, what do YOU think?

I can’t believe he hasn’t played on American Television before. UK heartthrob Ed Harcourt will be on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show this evening to promote his new album (well, that is to say his 2006 album that never got released in the States) The Beautiful Lie, which came out on Dovecote Records last Tuesday. Listening to The Beautiful Lie (and his back catalogue as well) it baffles me why he isn’t as huge in North America as he is in Europe. Last March during SXSW I ended up tagging along and filming Ed and his wife Gita as he got a sweet tattoo of one of his first songs, “Sing For My Supper” on his arm in Austin, TX. Enjoy our lil’ mini doc:

ED HARCOURT TO MAKE U.S. TELEVISION DEBUT ON THE TONIGHT SHOW JUNE 6, WEEK OF ‘THE BEAUTIFUL LIE’ RELEASE

LOS ANGELES, May 6, 2008 - Not long since wreaking havoc on Austin, Texas during SXSW, the illustrious Ed Harcourt will return to the States from his native England to perform on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Friday, June 6. Timed perfectly with the release of his fourth full-length album, THE BEAUTIFUL LIE, due June 3 on Dovecote Records, Harcourt will celebrate the arrival of this much-awaited LP with a national television debut.

The Mercury Prize-nominated Harcourt has been keeping extraordinarily busy on tour with the Gutter Twins overseas, where he has been joining Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan and co. on stage following his own opening set. “Ed Harcourt’s songs are as close to cabaret tunes and 1960s pop as they are to current rock,” recently noted the NEW YORK TIMES while UNDER THE RADAR hailed ‘The Beautiful Lie’ as “his best work to date.” The WALL STREET JOURNAL was on hand for one of his acclaimed Austin performances, calling Harcourt, “a gifted songwriter in the mold of Karl Wallinger and XTC’s Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding” adding, “and thus a descendant of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.”

Lead radio single, “Revolution in the Heart,” mimics Harcourt’s larger-than-life personality, brimming with his exquisite piano playing, booming delivery, thunderous rhythms and bursting backup vocals, compliments of The Magic Numbers. The track is currently going for adds at radio, already receiving early support across the country from stations like Starbucks XM Café, KBAC and others.

This visit is a precursor to additional U.S. tour dates this summer, to be announced soon.

[The following article, written by Bob Howard for Synthesis Weekly, was originally published in the print version of Synthesis on Monday, May 19th, 2008. He can be reached at bob@madbob.com]

Keep on Drinking
By Bob Howard

“Be it destiny or free will, there are those amongst us who might do the rest of society a favor by staying on the couch, taking bong rips and playing the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.”

A Long History of Stupid: I’ve just started reading a biography of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and as a result, I’m learning quite a lot about the history of this country and the tradition of our government cracking down on dissent. This latest episode of our history is far from the first time the Bill of Rights has been superseded and suspended in the name of “security.” I have yet to grasp the logic of suspending freedoms to ensure security when I thought that the whole thing we are trying to secure in the first place is freedom; but I digress.
Anyway, here are some interesting factoids I’ve picked up thus far: Remember when in protest of the French dissent against the “War on Terror” our Congress made the brilliant move of re-naming French Fries “Freedom Fries?” Seems like a pretty creative manifestation of nationalistic stupidity, right? Wrong. During World War I, our Congress re-named Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Our current stupidity isn’t even original! How do you like that?

Think the threat of terrorism is a new thing? Wrong. Just prior to and then after World War I, the Red Scare developed. Anarchists and Communists were on the rise and there were actually a series of letter bombs and bomb attacks that riddled the nation’s capitol and industrial power figures.
These attacks lead to a complete abridgment of the freedoms granted in the Bill of Rights. Anyone suspected of being a communist, a socialist, or a sympathizer — essentially any Russian factory worker — was rounded up in mass arrests and many were unceremoniously deported so quickly that there wasn’t even time for an appeal.

More heartwarming thoughts after the jump. (more…)

Hearing all this BS about a Roger Clemens / Mindy McCready tryst amidst his defamation of character suit against former trainer McNamee, I realized that I have never sat down and watched a baseball game in a decade, and that I have never listened to one of Mindy McCready’s songs. So here’s to rectifying the latter.

Yeah… It’s fair to say that I like Nashville’s Pop Radio sensations as much as I like watching baseball. That is, this much:

Which I guess makes me Un-American. C’est la vie.

Most folks know the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard version of this outlaw country classic, but here’s a version done by the original author, Townes van Zandt. His own name never got as big as his most famous tune, but you should check into Townes van Zandt - “Pancho & Lefty” is just one of his amazing, well-crafted songs.

I must have listened to the Nelson/Haggard version five times on my trip back up from Sacramento yesterday. The chorus….oh man, nearly gets me weepy every time.

Lyrics after the jump.

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