Brendan Croker (UK)

11/07/2003

GC De Platoo, Brussels (BE)

I was leafing through a local newspaper yesterday, when I suddenly caught Croker’s name. I guessed he’d perform in some classy, expensive club in downtown Brussels, but then I looked closer and saw that he played the same night, like, 500 meters from my door! For free, in a community center! I mean, Brendan Croker! He’s probably unknown to Americans and those who are happy with what’s spoon-fed to them by the media, but his resume is quite impressive: he was a member of cult-band The Mekons for a while, gained some notoriety with his own band the Five O’Clock Shadows, befriended Mark Knopfler and was a member of The Notting Hillbillies in the early ‘90’s, had Eric Clapton lending a hand on one of his albums, jammed with Randy Newman, etc. Because of the recurring left-wing politics and presence of several protest songs in his catalogue, you could, in a way, compare him to Billy Bragg, but whereas Bragg seems to reside strictly in neo-Guthrie folk(-rock), Croker’s musical palette is more diverse, drawing from blues, country , folk, New Orleans R&B, rockabilly, etc, and he’s probably one of the few British musicians to have operated from Nashville for quite a while.

Anyway, even though I only own one of his albums (The Great Indoors (’92) which you should pick up if you get the opportunity – it’s a nice, laid-back album covering lots of styles and performed by top-notch musicians), I decided to check it out. “What part of No is it you don’t understand?” is the name Croker gave his current tour. Fed up with surreal current politics and other personal experiences (“I teach young singer-songwriters, and none of them writes protest songs anymore. What about education? I pay taxes for it!?”), Croker compiled a database of 40 essential protest songs, some in the strong sense of the word (touching upon child labour, racism, crooked dictatorships), while others embody teenage rebellion or a healthy disdain for conservative values. Just one man, one acoustic guitar and 40 songs to pick from … it nearly made me feel like I was part of the Greenwich Village-community circa ‘65. Anyway, the cool thing about it all was that Croker let the audience decide the order of the songs, which lent it an illusion of improvisation: he’d just point to a random member in the audience, who then could pick a number between 1-40. The 28 songs he’d play in the next hundred minutes or so ranged from the hilarious-but-sour such as Randy Newman’s “Political Science” to the famous/outrageous internet song “Bomb Iraq,” the coalminer’s tale “Dark as a Dungeon,” the anti-establishment “Bourgeoisie Blues” and the late-‘60’s anti-war sentiments of Donovan’s “Universal Soldier”. Indeed, some of these picks were quite predictable (like Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and there had to be at least one Phil Ochs-song, of course), but the less familiar others sounded equally relevant: Eddie Cochran’s teenage anthem “Summertime Blues” went hand in hand with Bruce Cockburn’s accusatory “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” and the traditional “Down by the Riverside.” Throughout the performance, Croker sung, moaned, hollered and whispered, giving the songs sudden twists, adding jazzy accents here and there and reverted predictable phrasings. His unwillingness to conform even made his mark on the songs: while some of ‘em were nearly halfway before I recognized them, Croker’s authority and love for his subject was unquestionable. Ridiculing when possible (hearing 40 people sing along to “Bomb Iraq” is quite entertaining, believe me), but with appropriate seriousness during a horrific masterpiece such as “Strange Fruit,” Croker managed to avoid the traps that come with such a diverse set-list, giving each song the credit it deserved (and situating the lesser known ones briefly). Concepts like this usually guarantee a fairly consistent quality, but if I had to pick out favorites, I’d go for his interpretations of Leadbelly’s “Bourgeois Blues,” Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” (“the ultimate workingman’s blues”) and his overwhelming take on Dylan’s “Masters of War.” I originally was planning on having a quiet night doing nothing (“the great indoors,” right?), but checking out Croker was certainly the better option: the man’s dedication is immediately obvious, the song selection was indeed excellent and I even found myself humming along to a gospel-ized version of “Mercedes Benz,” and that says a lot. Croker’s smart enough not to consider himself the conscience of any nation or group, but fortunately he’s also one of the few who realize that it doesn’t hurt to say “No” once in a while.

Here’s the set list. I couldn’t figure out some of the songs (I’m not an encyclopedia), but I think I did a decent job (if you know the ones I’m missing, drop me an e-mail)

- “Political Science” (Randy Newman)
- ??? – a 19th century song about “the British 59th regiment” (if I remember it well)
- “Summertime Blues” (Eddie Cochran)
- “The Great Indoors” (Brendan Croker)
- “If I had a Rocket Launcher” (Bruce Cockburn)
- “Mercedes Benz” (Janis Joplin)
- “My Government” (Brendan Croker)
- “Down by the Riverside” (traditional)
- “Bomb Iraq” (the internet song, which you can find using Google)
- “Eve of Destruction” (P.F. Sloan, made famous by Barry McGuire)
- “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Bob Dylan)
- “Bourgeois Blues” (Leadbelly)
- ??? – I think it was a traditional, with the recurring line “What are we fightin’ for?” (no, not the Live song)
- “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” (Phil Ochs)
- “Nowhere Man” (The Beatles, in a Lonnie Johnson-arrangement)
- “My Uncle” (The Flying Burrito Brothers)
- “Masters of War” (Bob Dylan)
- “Dark As a Dungeon” (Merle Travis)
- “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” (traditional?)
- ??? – one of Croker’s own songs, with the recurring line “Some people have no money at all”
- “Hush Little Baby” (traditional)
- “Iron Hand” (Mark Knopfler)
- “Strange Fruit” (Abel Meeropol)
- “Big Boss Man” (Jimmy Reed)
- “Universal Soldier” (Donovan)
- “Brother Can You Spare a Dime ?” (Gorney/Harburg)
- ??? – an anti-racism song with references to Jim Crow
- “Games People Play” (Joe South)

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