Where are today's Steinbecks?

[Emily]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13358745

11 May 2011 Last updated at 20:15 ET

Where are today's Steinbecks?
By Michael Goldfarb Writer and broadcaster, London

Millions of men and women have lost their jobs in the latest global downturn - the biggest for decades. Why do we hear so little about them?

Read much about the unemployed, lately? Did you even know there was an employment crisis? You'd be forgiven if you didn't.

Journalists report the numbers, but what about the individual lives the figures represent? You would have thought that a few of those stories might entice writers/film-makers/artists. You would be wrong.

About the numbers first. In Britain and America the employment situation is worse than at any time since the Great Depression. Yet the monthly headline figures on employment are the only ones you read about....

Perhaps Boris Mikhailov is this Great Depression's Dorothea Lange. His work hit a raw nerve in an art critic with the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/15c122ce-9...#axzz1Or2AN6Yo

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Where are today's Steinbecks?

Flogging Molly: Speed Of Darkness Review
Celtic punk band slow things down for latest release.

June 2, 2011 June 2, 2011 June 2, 2011
by Chad Grischow By Celtic punk standards, the fifth studio album from, Los Angeles seven-member outfit, Flogging Molly is practically down tempo.
...

Produced by Ryan Hewitt (Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Avett Brothers), the album delivers a more guitar focused approach on songs like "Don't Shut 'Em Down". The stomping riffs, rumbling bass groove and kicked-up beat drive King's frustrated lyrics examining recession-shuttered businesses, with the fiddle kept deep in the background. Despite the downtrodden lyrics of "The Power's Out", the thick bluesy guitar, defiant vocals and charming accordion create a hopeful spirit amid talk of the bleak job market, "From the town of Detroit where my job is secure, yeah / Secure in the fact that it's gone for good, yeah".

King takes a look at blue-collar struggles on empowering, punk leaning "Revolution" as he snarls, "I spent twenty-seven years in this factory / Now the boss man says, hey, you're not what we need / The penguins in the suits, they know nothing but greed / It's a solitary life when you've mouths to feed / But who cares about us?". It is the kind of topical rock anthem that leaves you wondering why it is not all over the radio. As energized as the song is, fans will notice a definite downshift from the off-the-rails approach they are used to.

...

http://music.ign.com/articles/117/1172421p1.html