a great album and my mixed feelings

The other night I went out to meet a friend who's moving away. The venue was a small bar/rerstaurant in Sea Cliff. They had a band -- the Rusty String Band -- playing bluegrass. The band was good enough that I was up for buying some recotrded music. Without going into great detail, I ended up buying a solo CD by the fiddler, Russ Seeger.

What's interesting about this is that it's not a bluegrass album. Live in Peace is a strong blues-flavored album.The songs are generally strong -- although -- interestingly, there are a few places where I, thinking as a songwriter was conscious of how my decisions would have been different. Not necessarilly better. Just different. Seeger sings with an invigorating attention-grabbing snarl. The production is crisp, and the arrangements are generally spot on. My favorites are "California Blues"and the country-flavored "Towne Called Mercy." I hadn't heard about Seeger before Friday's show, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the disc. Following is a video of the title track:

This was not my favorite track on the album, but I didn't see any videos for my favorites. So this is what I'm posting.

Now, all that said, my enthusiasm is somewhat diminished by something else I found while I was looking for videos to accompany this post. A video for another song by Seeger that expresses an acidic fantasy of the deaths of Bush administration players and others who supported the war in Iraq. This is accompanied by various images, most notable being one of President Bush as a vampire biting the neck of the statue of liberty. Musically, the track is great. But the imagery is over the top, and the message is one I cannot support. There wasn't anything remotely close to this on the album I bought. Or if there was, then it was during a part of the album that played when I wasn't paying close attention (or it was subtle enough that I missed it). But I'm human and my feelings for the music will be tainted by my associating it with "Heroes." I'll let you judge for yourself: