Strange Bedfellows

SPLIT VOTE: Ted Leo likes the flag but doesn't care much for the stuffed moose. Photo By: Patrick Rapa

Ted Leo and Concerts for Kerry rock the vote — at Whiskey Dix?!

by Mike Pelusi

At Whiskey Dix — which springs out of a converted warehouse next to the Electric Factory, on N. Seventh Street — two chandeliers hang from the high ceiling. There's not a single cut of crystal on them, though. They appear to be made of antlers. Brassieres hang suggestively from both; one even has a pair of boxers twisting in the air. It's unclear whether these undergarments were indeed tossed by patrons in a fit of inebriated abandon, or if they're merely part of the premeditated decor, intent on convincing us that this is the sort of classy joint where stuff like that happens.

This isn't the strangest place in Philadelphia to have an indie-rock fundraiser for John Kerry, but it's up there.

Concerts for Kerry is a national grassroots group intent on helping raise funds for the Kerry campaign to achieve that all-important goal: getting George W. Bush out of the White House. CfK shows have been held in a few cities already, and every dollar of the cover goes to Kerry. Last Sunday's show at Whiskey Dix, the fourth CfK event held in Philly, enlisted three local acts — Mazarin, The Capitol Years and South Congress — and a truly redoubtable headliner, Ted Leo and The Pharmacists.

"In past election years I haven't gotten involved until a month before the election, and I knew that I wanted to do more this time," says Nikki Columbus of New York; she helped found Concerts for Kerry in April.

Amanda Kimmel, a Philly organizer, hopes CfK will "encourage people to get excited about Kerry as candidate, just [because] people are doing alternative things, as opposed to $250-a-head fundraising dinners."

Rock and politics mixed is a potent but precarious cocktail. For artists, there lies the ever-present risk that message overtakes the medium, that a song becomes a mere vehicle for ranting and polemics without giving the audience anything to really grab onto, anything about the song to actually enjoy. At the same time, this is a politically momentous and frightening time to be alive, and therein lies a call to musicians, writers and artists to capture how it feels, both for now and for history. Balancing all this is easier said than done. Even a band usually lauded for their pointed approach to politics such as Sleater-Kinney can falter. Their last album, One Beat (2002) featured the song "Step Aside," which brilliantly captured the dread and weird elation of life after Sept. 11, immediately followed by the irritating, shrill finger pointing of "Combat Rock."

At first, getting any kind of political agenda from Sunday's show seems to require coaxing, or at least patience. South Congress frontman Dave Brett mumbles a reminder to vote before leaving the stage, and The Capitol Years' Shai Halperin favors non sequiturs, introducing songs from the group's loose-limbed set by claiming they're about campaign finance and Ralph Nader. There's not much rabble rousing until City Controller Jonathan Saidel takes the stage for some sharp words on the president's policies.

Of course, no one wants to be preached to at a rock show, especially by people with guitars. It's good that Concerts for Kerry lets the money do the political talking; as of June 23, more than $97,000 has been raised. It also points to one unavoidable fact (as do the show fliers with Kerry's shit-eating grin Photoshopped onto the body of a finger-picking yokel): All the rock 'n' roll in the world won't make John Kerry an inspiring candidate. He has to do that himself. The organization easily could have been Concerts for Dean or Concerts for Edwards, had the primaries followed an alternate reality. But that's the tenor of the times; hell, it's pretty much the entire platform of the Democratic Party and the left wing of the country: George W. Bush must go, and this guy here is the only way we have of doing it.

Nevertheless, Concerts for Kerry doesn't lack a clear purpose. "At first I was certain that other people would be doing this and that we weren't needed, but I quickly saw that wasn't the case," Columbus recalls, "Most of the groups holding concerts are nonpartisan, often because they need to be for legal reasons. And I was frustrated by this: Organizations that encourage voting but don't discuss issues, that will say they're against Bush but won't say that they are for Kerry. Concerts for Kerry is proudly partisan, and we raise money directly for the Kerry campaign."

On Sunday, the promise of politics and music is realized once Ted Leo and The Pharmacists take the stage. "I don't approve of that or that," the singer-guitarist begins, pointing at those bra-festooned light fixtures and a large stuffed moose head stage left. "But I do approve of this," he says, jutting his finger upward at the American flag hanging above him.

Next thing you know, "Where Have all the Rude Boys Gone?" is sailing aloft to the rafters. Leo's high-energy mix of new wave and Irish folk rarely lets up tonight, as powerful readings of "I'm a Ghost" and "Biomusicology" attest.

As a songwriter, he understands that any discussion of politics in rock needs a healthy shot of the (nonpolitical) party element. "Tension is high under sea and over sky," he sings on "Rude Boys." "But it's easy to see/ Ooh, we could dance and be free."

"The "ideas' and the "rock' need to help each other, not overshadow one or the other," he explains over e-mail. "Just like in Eddie and the Cruisers — "Words and music, man, words and music.'"

Concerts for Kerry couldn't have found a better headliner had they managed to bring Joe Strummer back from the dead. Instead of preaching to the misplaced choir at Whiskey Dix, Leo does what any rocker addressing politics must do, he acknowledges the ambivalence of the situation: "Don't let John Kerry off the hook."