Author: chimesfreedom

Editor-in-chief, New York.

Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls: California Wine

I recently discovered Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls through their Twitter account and checked out their website to discover some wonderful rootsy rocking music. Check out their video for “California Wine,” and I guarantee you will be singing the catchy song the rest of the day.

Their website describes their music: “Firmly entrenched in organically American music, the band mines elements of rock, country and folk coupled with rich storytelling and the poking and prodding of emotional contexts both personal and worldly.” Those are some fancy words, but the music speaks for itself. You may hear more of their songs on their music page. Also, on their website you will find downloads and a sampler EP of Packed for Exile as well as their debut album, The Vain Hope of Horse (2008), which includes some help from Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Nels Cline of Wilco.

Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls Our readers who are Springsteen fans may be interested to know that the Greedy Souls include Jason Federici, the son of the E Street Band’s late Danny Federici, playing accordian and organ, of course. Along those lines, Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls recorded a version of Springsteen’s “4th of July, Asbury Park” available for free download at Backstreets.com if you click on the song title here. Other members of the Greedy Souls along with Jason Heath include Ben Perdue, Abe Etz, Jonathan Chi, Aaron Gitnick, Chris Joyner, and Ysanne Spevack.

The band is located in California, where Heath grew up and met drummer Abe Etz when they both were in sixth grade. They planned to create a band even before they could play instruments, and, unlike usual childhood dreams, they worked to make this one come true.

If you enjoy the music, check out their website and support the band. Also, for all of the fans of Springsteen, the Greedy Souls, and the Federici’s, do not forget to check out the DannyFund to help fight melanoma, which took Danny Federici away from us way too soon.

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    September 11: Into the Fire

    911 tower lights

    “The sky was falling and streaked with blood . . .

    “May your strength give us strength
    May your faith give us faith
    May your hope give us hope
    May your love give us love.”

    — “Into the Fire,” Bruce Springsteen

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    Hot Coffee (Mad Movies)

    Hot Coffee

    Hot Coffee is a new HBO documentary about how corporations used a famous legal case to push for limits on their liability under the guise of “tort reform.” Although you think you know about the McDonald’s hot-coffee-spill case, you know less about what happened than you think.

    In 1992, the 79-year-old Stella Liebeck went to McDonald’s with her grandson. After they made their purchase, the grandson pulled over the car to divide up the food and to allow Liebeck to add cream and sugar to her coffee. While removing the lid, Liebeck spilled the scalding coffee, which caused third degree burns and sent Liebeck to the hospital for eight days. After McDonald’s refused to help pay for medical expenses, Liebeck sued the company. The media reported about Liebeck winning more than two million dollars in punitive damages against McDonald’s, but that award was reduced to less than half a million dollars, and then the parties reached a settlement.

    Hot Coffee tells a lot more about the case than you probably knew, because most of us know about the case from what we heard from corporations who used the case to get states to limit individual people from suing companies for damages. After you see the photo of the Liebeck’s third-degree burns and the know that hundreds of other people were burned by the coffee, you might be glad that she sued, leading McDonald’s to lower its coffee holding temperature. And, while you may still agree that limits on damages are a good thing, you will at least question the way corporate money influenced our perceptions of the issue and also bought politicians to support tort reform.

    Overall, Hot Coffee is very informative and will open your eyes about an important issue. While it does take one side and you may disagree with some of its conclusions, its discussion of the legal cases will make you question some of your ideas. And that is always a good thing.


    “Mad Movies” (or “Movies that Make Us Mad”) is a Chimesfreedom series about movies that expose information that we might not otherwise know about, revealing misinformation, lies, and hidden stories that make us angry.

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    Well … All Right: Buddy’s 75th Birthday Roundup

    Buddy Holly Collection Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, meaning that this Wednesday, the man we came to know as Buddy Holly would have been 75 years old. I like to think there is some universe where Buddy is still making music. But in this universe, we will have to make due with the great music he left us when he died in 1959 at the young age of 22 on a flight from Mason City, Iowa to Moorhead, Minnesota.

    Around the web there are a number of stories celebrating the 75th birthday of the rock pioneer from Lubbock, Texas. Check out the links below (if you want an image of Buddy to guide you while you read this website, click this link).

    – Tribute CDs: Because it is all about the music, the best place to start may be this Rolling Stone link that is offering a free stream of the forthcoming tribute CD, Listen to Me: Buddy Holly (2011). The free steam is only up for a limited time, so now is the time to check out the CD, featuring Stevie Nicks, The Fray, Ringo Starr, and others. Chris Isaak’s version of “Crying Waiting Hoping” is a highlight, but I do not get the point of Eric Idle’s Monty Python-esque reading of “Raining in My Heart.” USA Today has a review of the CD. While the CD has some nice covers, nothing comes close to the originals, of course. Another tribute CD, Rave On Buddy Holly, was out earlier this year, and is reviewed by The Aquarian Weekly. I am a fan of a previous tribute CD, Not Fade Away (1996), featuring The Band, Nanci Griffith, Joe Ely, and the Mavericks. That CD features a haunting “Learning the Game” from Holly’s bassist Waylon Jennings.

    – Walk of Fame: KCBD notes that the birthday celebration includes a new star on the Walk of Fame. Lubbock Online explains how the star event has turned into an overdue celebration.

    – Buddy Holly’s Widow: Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Santiago-Holly, talks to Rolling Stone about the tributes. But Amarillo.com explains why Holly’s widow is trying to stop a tribute concert by a Buddy Holly impersonator.

    – Holly’s Relevance: In Holly’s hometown, Lubbock Online ponders why Holly is still relevant more than fifty years after his death. Similarly, the Houston Chronicle lists several reasons Buddy Holly still has a hold on us at 75.

    – Gary Busey as Holly: TMZ posted a video of Gary Busey, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his outstanding portrayal of Holly in The Buddy Holly Story (1978). In the video, Busey made a recent karaoke attempt to reprise his Holly-style singing on “Maybe Baby” (not for the faint of heart).

    – Life & Career: In “Buddy Holly’s 75th on Wednesday; That’ll Be the Day,” the Los Angeles Times talks to some who remember Holly and discusses the new tribute CDs. Similarly, Cybergrass recounts Holly’s career and discusses the new CD.

    – Odd Tributes to Holly’s Glasses: Finally, for two odd Holly-related photos that were recently posted: First, the Silver Lining Opticians Blog features a photo of Holly to promote a style of spectacles (or you may see how you would look in Holly’s glasses at buddyholly.me). Second, NewMexicoBoxing.com has a photo of boxer Eric Henson, who is nicknamed “Buddy Holly.” You will be able to guess why from the photo.

    Somewhat surprisingly, as the day approaches, there is not as much written about Buddy Holly’s 75th birthday on the web as one might expect. Much of of the news about Holly is related to the new tribute CD. Perhaps because he died so long ago, fewer people connect to him the way we connect to anniversaries regarding John Lennon or Elvis Presley. Oh well, maybe there is not much new to say as long as we have the music.

    “Now, no matter what you think about rock and roll,” check out this clip of Holly singing “Peggy Sue” on The Arthur Murray Dance Party from December 29, 1957, with an introduction that reminds us that Buddy Holly and rock music was on the cutting edge of the times. Thus, he rightfully was among the initial class of ten performer inductees when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame began in 1986. Buddy, hope you are having a great birthday in your universe.

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    Jesse James Born Today in the County of Clay

    Jesse James

    “He was born one day in the County of Clay
    And he came from a solitary race.”

    On today’s date in 1847, Jesse James was born in Clay County Missouri. Within two years, his father, the Rev. Robert James, ran off and left his family behind to go to look for gold in California, never to return. Their mother Zerelda soon remarried a stepfather who was abusive to Jesse and his brother Frank, and she would later marry another stepfather.

    As a teenager in the border state of Missouri, Jesse learned to kill for the South during the Civil War, as did his brother Frank. Then the brothers went on to a life of crime. By most accounts, Jesse was not the Robin Hood hero as portrayed in the traditional “Ballad of Jesse James,” made famous by Woody Guthrie and others. But sometimes we need outlaw heroes to inspire us to fight authority. Below is a version of the song by Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band, starting with a long banjo introduction.

    Springsteen’s version of the ballad appears on We Shall Overcome The Seeger Sessions. Other songs that reference James include Cher’s “Just Like Jesse James” from 1988. If you wish to celebrate Jesse James’s birthday with a film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is one of the most beautiful movies of recent years. While slow-paced at times, the movie, which stars Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, is elegiac and poetic.

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