You Will Not Be Able to Stay Home. You Will Not Be Able to Log on, Upload, and Sell Out.

Martin Luther King Jr. weekend serves up some irresistible irony, this year, and I'm not talking Barack v. Hill.  Gil-Scott Heron, the direct jazz poet who once told us that "the revolution will not go better with Coke," will be playing a pair of shows downtown.

In Brooklyn, the local debut of a Minnesotan youngster who turned his serious-minded, long-winded, nebulous online hit into a soft-drink jingle.

Though he'll always be best remembered for the iconic spoken-word performance of "Revolution," Scott-Heron's a towering figure, a fierce social critic who's been going at it with head, heart, and humility for forty years.  He's cited as an influential practitioner of proto-rap (that damned flute makes him sound like a hepcat holdover... though the Beats bagged much of their bang from ‘bop worship, it goes around, goes around...).  He's got history with the date:  His forthcoming book The Last Holiday chronicles his work with Stevie Wonder towards drumming up support for federal recognition of a day of remembrance of civil progress.  ("You don't have to celebrate Dr. King, pick somebody else," he offers.)

He sounds matter-of-fact - and old - in this NPR interview from last month (via).  He's fifty-six, he's HIV-positive, he's twice served time on drug possession charges (maybe the revolution will go better with coke, after all).  In October, he was arrested again.  Since he was paroled last spring, he's played S.O.B.'s two times (there's YouTube footage); there are two more shows, tonight.  After that?

Gil Scott-Heron - Winter in America (Live)(mp3) (buy)

The sound is dated, but the song - about "frozen aspirations, frozen hopes" - is sad and weighty and real.  "There ain't nobody fighting because nobody knows what to say."  I wish there was something as moving and simple in our iBuds now.

Meanwhile, a snippet from Tay Zonday's latest song promises that in "the year 6000, if you make it there, you'll party all day without a care." 

That's a cheap shot.  Here, enjoy this clip of Zonday singing "Amazing Grace World Trade Center" with Ground Zero in the background.  Note that, on its original page, the video is tagged "sexy" "funny" and "hot."

Shallower attentions might find their way over to Europa, where Zonday's topping the bill.  I pondered his cewebrity a while back, applauded his amateurism.  Now, when you go to the home page of his YouTube account, the soda spot is set to autoplay.

Live?  He's played a high-profile sold-out date in his hometown (opening for Dan Deacon and Girl Talk, a gig probably meant to celebrate DIY but whose contagious contextualization instead compounded novelty act accusations all-round) and made a few television appearances.  I don't know how many other gigs there have been (at another Minnesota performance, he played the voice of God in a radio play thing; there's also been a YouTube awards show appearance and a spot at a Chicago block party), but headlining a night at a Brooklyn nightclub on MLK weekend seems like a bad idea.

(Weirdly, there's no mention of tonight's gig on Zonday's home page, myspace, or YouTube account.  Maybe this is a low-profile gig, for him.)

tags: gil scottheron  tay zonday  

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