Category Archives: Articles

The Blues Magoos’ Resurrection

There are times when ideas and words effortlessly flow out of me, and there are times when they don’t. While some may consider it a challenge, I prefer to view it as an opportunity. I have an arsenal of books, magazines, websites, and my music collection to rummage through when I need inspiration. And, should that fail, there’s always a few topics I keep on the shelf for moments such as these.

Back in 1964, there were some kids from the Bronx who had a band called The Trenchcoats, and they played at clubs down in Greenwich Village. Riding the post-British-Invasion first wave of American rock bands, after a few false starts with a couple of labels, they landed on Mercury Records with a new name: The Blues Magoos. Released in 1966, their debut album Psychedelic Lollipop was a great album of the times, with a hot single titled “We Ain’t Got Nothing Yet” that still resonates today with a memorable bass line, Farfisa organ riff, and killer guitar run.

In Philadelphia’s suburban Greater Northeast, there was a discount retailer out of New York by the unusual name of S. Klein on the Square. It was a department store with clothes, shoes, accessories, appliances, furniture, and a record department in the basement. While I didn’t often shop there, my friend David and I got busted one Saturday afternoon in early 1967 for attempting to shoplift an Animals’ single and were “banned for life.” Two weeks later, it was advertised that the Blues Magoos would be making a personal appearance, and there was no way we were going to miss it.

I was a fat teenager with a Beatles bowl cut, striped bell bottoms, and black boots. David was skinny and had a ponytail. As we kept an eye out for the security people, I couldn’t believe the crowd. Instead of people who looked like me and him, almost all of the guys wore ties and jackets. And they were from Father Judge High School, known for being tough and always ready to fight. While there were maybe a couple of dozen girls in their school uniforms standing on the outside, the 50 or so guys were all up close and gathered around a foot-high platform where the band was going to perform.

When the Magoos came out, I remember thinking that they had great hair and I noted that one of the guys wore a lace or ruffled shirt beneath a velvet jacket. As soon as they began to play, the crowd began to edge closer and closer. I’m not sure how far into the set the band got before the kids pushed forward and began throwing punches. I scrambled up the escalator as fast as my feet would move, and looking back I saw that the musicians were on the run too. When we were all outside, I remember the guy in velvet getting swarmed and taking a few hard hits before they got into a van and left. It was a total protopunk moment.

I finally got to hear the band at Convention Hall a few months later on a hot July night. They opened for Moby Grape, Scott McKenzie, and the Mamas and Papas.

From 1965 to 1968 the core band stayed together and released three albums. Peppy Castro (guitar and vocals) put another group together using the same band name for two more releases before they spilt up and he joined the cast of Hair. In July 2008, the Blues Magoos with original members Ralph Scala, Castro, and Geoff Daking reunited for two concerts, including one with The Zombies at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. In December 2009 they traveled to Spain for the Purple Weekend festival.

This past week, well over 40 years since their last release, the Blues Magoos performed three sold-out shows at the Bowery Electric in NYC. They have a new album, available on CD Baby, titled Psychedelic Resurrection and a Facebook page with over 1700 followers. Peppy is doing interviews and talking about the Village scene, partying with Keith Moon, and how he taught Ace Frehley from KISS how to play the guitar.

They ain’t kids from Da’ Bronx anymore; the boys are back.

This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

Texas Musician Community of Wimberley Devastated in Historic Flood

I am re-posting this article from Trigger Coroneos at SavingCountryMusic.com to bring everyone up to speed if you haven’t yet heard the news. It’s Tuesday May 26th at around 5:00 EST. Since Saturday I have been following the Facebook updates from musician Robyn Ludwick, who lives in Wimberly Texas. In the days preceeding the storms, she was excited to be getting ready to go out on tour next week, and also thanked an Australian disc jokey who was spinning her latest album. Her world literally turned upside down in a short time. Here is the story from Trigger.

Many of your favorite Austin, TX musicians who list their hometown as Austin actually live in a small community south and west of the city in the panoramic Texas Hill Country called Wimberley. About a 45-minute drive from Austin, the small town of less than 3,000 sits on the banks of the Blanco River, and is a favorite day trip for many central Texas residents.

The picturesque town and its surroundings have been the inspiration for many country songs since the greater Austin area became a haven for musicians in the 60’s, and Wimberley has boasted a strong artist community for many years. Ray Wylie Hubbard calls Wimberley home, and Hal Ketchum used to live in a cabin in the community. Bluegrass prodigy Sarah Jarosz is originally from Wimberley, and so are many other songwriters and musicians who have lent their creative efforts to country and roots music over the years. The Wimberley United Methodist Church regularly hosts “Susanna’s Kitchen” concerts where local artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard play.

On Saturday night (5-23), the Blanco River that runs through Wimberley overran its banks to historic levels amidst the devastating storms Texas has been experiencing. The heart of Wimberley was ravaged, and an estimated 350 homes were destroyed when the river reached a historic level of 43 feet. The previous record flood for the Blanco was set in 1929, and was eight feet lower than where the river crested Memorial Day weekend. Flood stage on the Blanco River is 13 feet. According to the National Weather Service, the river was flowing at a rate of 223,000 cubic feet per second, which is 2.5 times the flow of Niagra Falls. The water was so intense, it swept away an entire bridge (see video below).Eight people are currently missing in the Wimberley flood from two separate families. Laura McComb and her two children Leighton and Andrew, Ralph and Sue Carey, Randy and Michelle Charba (daughter of Ralph and Sue), and their 4-year-old son Will have all been confirmed missing by authorities.

“I’m overcome with sorrow as my little Texas town lie(s) in ruins,” songwriter and performer Robyn Ludwick posted Monday morning (5-25) along with pictures of much of the devastation around Wimberley. Robyn is the sister of famous Texas singing brothers Bruce and Charlie Robison. “Wimberley, Texas, one of the most beautiful spots in the world has endured incomprehensible damage from flooding. My neighborhood is in the National news. Just 500 yards away, my neighbors are missing and still haven’t been found. This morning I walked a mile to get one bar on my cellphone to let every one know that we are safe. But we are not okay. What has kept me with strength is the messages of concern and love from my family, friends, fans, and unbelievable perfect strangers.”

Ludwick posted pictures and video of trees ripped out of the ground by flood waters, structures swept off their foundations, and cars overturned in trees.

“As I type, search and rescue helicopters circle. My little girl says ‘please let this be a bad nightmare mommy.’ Please pray for our little town, a gem along the Blanco River. We need every possible prayer. Rain drops fall and the sky darkens again. No way to get news or weather. Hopefully we can get thru the next round and start repairing our hearts and this little town.”

Information has been difficult to get out of Wimberley since access to the town is difficult, and communication channels are down. Ray Wylie Hubbard’s home, which is close to the center of Wimberley, was spared from the worst because it sits on a hill. “Thanks to all who have reached out to check on Ray Wylie & I,” Ray’s wife Judy Hubbard posted on Twitter. “We’re on a hill so no water in our house but lots of devastation in Wimberley.”Musicians Andrew Hardin and Susan Gibson were also spared the worst of the flood, though they lost power like most of the community during the devastating storm, and have friends and neighbors who’ve been heavily affected.

Another artist wasn’t so lucky. Bob Stafford, known to some as “Texaco,” who Wayne “The Train” Hancock can be heard calling out to on many of his early albums, had his Wimberley recording studio inundated with two feet of water in the disaster according to reports. Stafford was able to save his guitars, but amps, PA’s, and computers were damaged in the flood.

The flooding was also felt upstream in Boerne, TX where songwriter and performer Possessed by Paul James lives. He was forced to evacuate his family to higher ground, though Borene was spared the brunt of the flood. Downstream in San Marcos where many Texas/Red Dirt artists live, more homes have been destroyed or flooded, and more people are missing. And the threat of floods in Central Texas is not over. With highly saturated soil from weeks of historic rains, and more storms already flaring up on Monday including with multiple tornadoes, more flooding could occur.

UPDATE 3:20 PM CDT: Sarah Jarosz has posted, “Thanks to all who have reached out with concern in regards to the recent flooding in my hometown of Wimberley, Texas. My family is ok, but this is a very difficult time for the Wimberley community. Please keep all those who have lost their homes and loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.”

UPDATE 5/26 12:00 CDT:

********To anyone able to make a donation to help those from Wimberley, Texas.********

Wimberley has two organizations already set up and would prefer donations be sent to:

Barnabas, PO Box 737 Wimberley, Tx 78676

My Neighbors Keeper, PO Box 528 Wimberley, Tx. 78676.

Both are established 501c3 non-profit organizations and will ensure funds go directly to Wimberley area families.

Watching The Detectives

I am always at the beginning, middle, or end of a book. While my primary interests vacillate between biographies and works of nonfiction, my guilty pleasure is in the mystery and crime genre. In particular, I like series featuring the same hard boiled police detectives or private investigators that the reader can develop a relationship with over years, or in some cases, decades. Think of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder, John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport, or Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole, to name merely a few. There’s at least a baker’s dozen that I religiously follow.

Several years ago I had a sobering thought: what would happen to one of my beloved literary characters when the author passed on? I imagined it would be the end of the line, the final chapter. But no so fast.

With 71 books published, Robert B. Parker created a money-making franchise with Boston PI Spenser, and he also had two other concurrent series featuring Jesse Stone – the sheriff of a small Massachusetts beach town – and a female detective by the name of Sunny Randall. He had sold over 15 million copies of his books and was still turning out three per year up until January 2010, when he had a heart attack and died.

He was the first of my favorite aging authors to pass on, and I recall being both elated and aghast when I read that his family decided to hire a replacement for him to carry on the series – a ghostwriter in the real sense of the word. So it came to be that Ace Atkins, a pretty interesting blues-infused crime author himself, took the job to keep Spenser alive.

The titles of the Atkins-written Spenser books sound a bit clunky and silly: Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby, Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland, Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot and this week brought Robert B. Parker’s Kickback. But do they sell? And are they representative of Parker’s work? If you can believe the reader reviews on Amazon, and see them shoot up on the bestseller’s lists, the answer is a resounding yes. In fact, many say they can barely tell the difference between each author’s style and writing.

Just in case you were wondering about the Jesse Stone series, the Parker family hired another writer to continue that, and a third writer has brought back some of Parker’s Western-themed characters.

Should any of this seem odd to you, I would imagine you’re not alone. Many are appalled. But Parker is not the only author who managed to find life after death. The estates of Ian Fleming (James Bond) and Robert Ludlum (the Bourne series) have soared in popularity and generated millions and millions of dollars at the hands of other writers.

While I know that it might seem that I’ve chosen to stray off my usual topic of music, fear not. Because all this talk has made me wonder of the possibilities that lay ahead for many of our senior citizen folkies and rockers.

As record labels scramble for every crumb, and there is a never-ending corporate thirst for generating more, more, and more profit, just how far-fetched would it be to see something in the future like Bob Dylan’s Redhead on Brunette, written and recorded by a 25-year-old runner-up from The Voice? Actually, it sounds plausible, probable, and downright horrific. Get ready.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

The Skylarks: It’s All About The Name

On the day after my last birthday I got a very nice message from a fellow named Anthony Cook, who is the bass player in a Los Angeles-based band called The Skylarks. Along with a brief note, he included the download link for their third full-length album, the cover of which you see here. I listened to it, liked it, and it sort of slipped off my radar. Over the past few months, every now and then a track has popped up when I’m listening to music in shuffle mode and I think, “Oh yeah, those guys.”

Had it not been for my old friend Will James posting their video here at No Depression last week and announcing that he’s booked them for his Gram Parsons International West showcase next October in Huntington Beach, CA, you might not be reading this. I take no responsibility for this, as you can attribute my mental lapse to the band’s name. Seriously.

At first, the name reminded me of the Pittsburgh doo-wop band The Skyliners who had a hit single in 1959 with “Since I Don’t Have You.” And then I began to think about another LA band called The Larks, who released “The Jerk” back in 1964. That song should not be confused with “Cool Jerk” by the Capitols, although both were dance songs.

And just to illustrate the way my mind takes twists and turns, it finally came to me that, in the early ’70s, one of Ronnie Hawkins’ backup groups from Canada morphed into Skylark, who were signed to Capitol Records and had a smash with “Wildflower” – an early “power ballad” covered and sampled by a diverse crowd, including New Birth, O’Jays, Kenny Rogers, Aaron Neville, Tupac Shakur, and Jamie Foxx.

When I finally decided to write about the group, the plot thickened. Do you have any idea how many bands are already out there with the name The Skylarks?

Let’s start with Miriam Makeba’s group from South Africa, who released two albums in the late 1950s. There were also a Skylark vocal group that formed in Michigan during World War II. They sang for both the Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey orchestras, recorded two tracks with Bing Crosby, were signed to RCA Victor, and had a 37 year career.

Some of you might know the Fairfield Four, an African-American gospel group that started out in the ’20s and had their own radio show out of Nashville on WLAC, which was also syndicated across the country. When they stopped touring in 1950, two members started a new group called … The Skylarks.

Allow me just one more. Here’s my favorite video of the week, from Finland’s Skylarks, who play ’60s-style instrumental music. I’ve got no idea where this was filmed, but I’m guessing it’s at some sort of Finnish Beatlesfest. Hang in there if you can, but if you get itchy just cut to 1:45 and let it roll.

Listen, I could go on forever. There must be a thousand bands named The Skylarks. So why would you name your band that? I’ve read about this thing called Google, where one can actually search for such duplicity. Not that there isn’t a history of double-naming throughout time. Nirvana had to pay another band of the same name $100,000 to keep it for themselves. The Charlatans from the UK have to call themselves The Charlatans UK, here in the US. There’s Dead Letter Circus and Dead Letter Chorus. Lizard Wizard and Lizzard Wizzard. Dear Hunter, Deerhunter, Dearhoof and Deartick. It doesn’t end.

The Skylarks that are the seed to this story began several years ago with founding member, songwriter, acoustic guitarist, and lead vocalist Sam Mellon teaming up with pedal steel, dobro, and banjo player Julian Goldwhite, and the aforementioned bassist Anthony Cook. Over time they’ve added Amy Luftigviste on backing vocals, Brian Olamit on drums and vocals, Dan Clucas on horns and percussion, and lead guitarist Russ Chaput.

While most of their performances have been throughout California – “from the desert to the sea,” they say – the new album is being played on both international and college radio, and they’ve managed to already have their songs placed on national television shows and in commercials. This is good straight-ahead American music; rich in texture with a blend of styles and genres. Here’s a taste from the album – a tune called “Almost Feel a Breeze.” Hopefully the band will forgive me for ambling off the beaten path to get to it.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Americana and Roots Music Videos: Spring 2015

Pixabay License

We’re somewhere around a third of the way into this year and I thought it was a good time to flip through the bin and share some of my favorite albums and songs with you. Frankly, I’m doing this much more for me than for you. I’ve acquired so much new stuff lately, and with barely enough time to listen, it’s going to force me to work a bit. But a night or two of just listening to music? Pretty nice job if you can get it.

I visit YouTube several times a day, every day … and sharing videos has become an important tool in discovering archival footage, catching up on old favorites, and exposing new music. Here’s a few things that caught my eyes and ears this season.

The Westies

John Ellis posted a review on No Depression for The Westies back in February, and he said that they “make music that demonstrates how closely related inner city grit and grime is with the softness of a serene Appalachian mountaintop. Americana doesn’t just belong in rural settings; West Side Stories is Americana music embedded in the rivets of Rust Belt cities with connections to Ireland, coal-streaked miners, and dirt under their fingernails sharecroppers.” Great description. This is the track that does it for me.

Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield

I seem to have missed their mini-tour last March, but Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield’s tribute to Elliott Smith presents twelve perfect songs that are handled with care and sprinkled with wonder. I haven’t read much about this project. It’s one that could have easily slipped past you.

Pharis and Jason Romero

I don’t think there’s anybody who has heard Pharis and Jason Romero’s music and failed to fall in love with their harmonies and songs. They’ve got such a great story, and A Wanderer I’ll Stay is probably the strongest of their albums so far. If we could only get them out of Canada and down south, life would be a dream.

Fairport Convention

While Fairport Convention may no longer have the same rabid fan base in America that they still maintain in England, they still make intensely magical music, as demonstrated by the title track of their latest album, Myths and Heroes. The annual Cropready concerts will commence in August.

Calexico

Just about every track on Calexico’s Edge of the Sun has a different guest on it. The first invitation to collaborate went to Sam Beam from Iron and Wine, and then they extended it to Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses, Nick Urata from Devotchka, Carla Morrison, Gaby Moreno, Amparo Sanchez, multi-instrumentalists from the Greek band Takim, as well as Neko Case. I wish we still had Top 40 AM radio because this one would be number one with a bullet.

John Moreland

John Moreland is the most dazzling singer, guitarist and songwriter in America. He’s a very big man. And I think I know why. Deep inside his soul lives Woody Guthrie, a young Bob Dylan, a kid from the Jersey shore named Bruce, and the hardcore troubadour Steve Earle. He’s that f-ing great. And you know what? I first discovered him on YouTube.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Musicians: The Haves and Have Nots

I don’t believe that my editor was too happy with me this week as the deadline for this column approached and she opened my email to discover that there were no attachments, photos or video links included. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Pleading for just a one-day extension, I admitted to be having a hard time focusing on the latest singer-songwriter album or stringband tour. The main reason being that while I rarely get the dreaded writer’s block, my mind was racing, addled and fried with thoughts of gender dysmorphia, that devastating earthquake in Nepal, and images of riots, looting, and fires in the streets of Baltimore.

Kim first encouraged me to write and post articles more often at No Depression back in 2009, and through the years I assume she has come to trust me. I told her not only would I come up with a great topic, I would keep it simple. Nothing that requires significant proofreading or fact checking. Seriously, how hard would it be to sit down at lunch and whip up a 500-word essay on something fairly light? My inbox is full of solicitations from marketing people and band members all shouting “Me, me, me!” All I had to do was pick one and – shazam! – the Broadside could come alive.

I’m reminded of an obscure Philadelphia band from the ’60s named the Kit Kats who charted locally with a song titled “Let’s Get Lost on a Country Road.” As I looked around for my easy-to-assemble story, I got lost. A little click here, another click there, here’s a link, there’s a link, everywhere there’s a link. And so it was that I thought Aha! Taking on the topic of income disparity in music could be a simple task. It wasn’t.

Many of my friends and acquaintances are musicians, and for the sake of this discussion I define that to mean that they perform and tour, record and release albums, and try hard to make enough money to pay their bills. Sadly, many of them don’t pay their bills. So, in order to make up for their financial shortfalls, they take what we call a “day job.” If they’re lucky enough, it might actually come with a flexible schedule to accommodate their shows or studio time. And if they’re able to score things like medical and dental benefits, it’s as if they’ve hit the lottery.

It’s the sad, sad truth that the life of a musician, both before and since the digital evolution, has always been hard.

For most, that is, but not all.

Below is a list I found today that was published in Forbes magazine last December. Here are the world’s highest paid musicians, with the amount of money they earned in 2014. In order to be fair, I should note that Dr. Dre’s number is a little wacko – it includes his haul from selling Beats, the headphone company, to Apple. So, subtract a half-billion dollars for him.

Still, as I scanned the list, it became clear that there is simply a staggering amount of money in the hands of just a few. Take a look:

1. Dr. Dre ($620 million)
2. Beyoncé ($115 million)
3. The Eagles ($100 million)
4. Bon Jovi ($82 million)
5. Bruce Springsteen ($81 million)
6. Justin Bieber ($80 million)
7. One Direction ($75 million)
8. Paul McCartney ($71 million)
9. Calvin Harris ($66 million)
10. Toby Keith ($65 million)
11. Taylor Swift ($64 million)
12. Jay Z ($60 million)(tie)
12. Diddy ($60 million)(tie)
12. Bruno Mars ($60 million)(tie)
15. Justin Timberlake ($57 million)
16. Pink ($52 million)
17. Michael Bublé ($51 million)
18. Rihanna ($48 million)
19. Rolling Stones ($47 million)
20. Roger Waters ($46 million)
21. Elton John ($45 million)
22. Kenny Chesney ($44 million)
23. Katy Perry ($40 million)
24. Jason Aldean ($37 million)(tie)
24. Jennifer Lopez ($37 million)(tie)
26. Miley Cyrus ($36 million)(tie)
26. Celine Dion ($36 million)(tie)
28. Muse ($34 million)(tie)
28. Luke Bryan ($34 million)(tie)
30. Lady Gaga ($33 million)(tie)
30. Drake ($33 million)(tie)

The musicians I know just barely missed making the list by about $32,970,000. Many work at fast food restaurants, retail stores, or in other areas of the service industry for minimum wage or slightly above it. Others work in the creative fields as web designers, photographers, designers, or other artistic roles. If they are able to stay within their craft, they might offer music lessons, play at weddings and bar mitzvahs, do music therapy at a hospital, find studio work for an hour or two here and there. If they can actually manage to put together a route or circuit of dates at coffee houses, clubs, and maybe festivals to perform at, they often do so at the generosity of others who offer a couch to sleep on and a meal or two.

I know what you may be thinking. They choose to do what they do, so it is what it is. But I don’t think so.

Musicians add something to our lives that you really can’t put a dollar value on. When I look at the list above, I wonder if there wasn’t something musicians could all do for one another. Just off the top of my head, what if NARAS, the organization that sponsors the Grammy awards show, was able to get each of those $33,000,000-plus-grossing artists to throw 20 percent of last year’s income into a fund? And what if that money was used to seed a subsidized group health-care plan that was open to all musicians? Just sayin’.

If I wasn’t way, way, way past my deadline, I could probably think of a dozen other ideas. Some might make sense, some not. I imagine this might seem a little off the wall and half-baked, but “redistributing the wealth” are three little words that make a lot of sense to me. And that list? Absolutely senseless.

This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

It’s All Going To Pot

Unlike the other columnists here at No Depression, so far my articles haven’t been restrained to a particular topic. Lee writes about music from around the world, Ted is the bluegrass man, and Raina shares about the stages she has performed on. While I’ve tried hard to stay on the theme of “exploring music without a map,” a better phrase or tag-line might have been one that I’ve used off and on over the years: random thoughts … as if your own were not enough.

Anyhow, it was pretty hard to miss via social media in the past week that Tuesday was 4/20. April 20. Doesn’t register? It’s the day some celebrate getting high on weed. A brand new Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard collaborative song titled “It’s All Going to Pot” was released as a video, got itself posted all over inter-webs, was Tweeted and re-Tweeted, shared on Facebook by lots and lots of folks, including No Depression.

Tapping my feet and listening to the chorus while watching these two old dudes toke up, I realized that while I’m less tolerant of the “beer, whiskey and women” country-stereotype we often hear on the radio, I’m actually inclined to enjoy a good song about smoke.

Unlike a certain former president of the United States, I’ve no problem admitting that I inhaled. Frequently. And for a long, long time.

This July marks twenty years of me choosing to be weed-free. There were basically two reasons I gave it up.

First, I was living close to the San Andreas fault line. Whenever I got a buzz, I was sure the ground would open up, swallow me in, and I’d be in no condition to pull myself out of the abyss. The second reason was that my oldest son was about to celebrate his first birthday. In my all-too-real fantasy world, I just knew I’d take him to the supermarket one day, buy my Cocoa Puffs and Ring Dings, pay the cashier, and leave him strapped in the cart. So I gave it up. Couple of years later, I took the path to sobriety and stopped drinking as well.

https://youtu.be/zP6Be7mappQ

It was coincidental that this week, and in fact on April 20, I finished Johann Hari’s latest book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. A London-based journalist, and a drug-user himself, Hari travelled the globe to research and write a pretty compelling story of how the American bureaucrat Harry Anslinger created the world-wide policy on how to deal with drugs. Anslinger’s solution has resulted in a complex set of laws and theories where the bad guys both run the game and profit from it. In the meantime, ordinary people are labeled criminals and law enforcement is relegated to spending a vast amount of money and resources on trying to control what is, frankly, unmanageable.

Hari presents a rather balanced view of the difference between looking at drug users as criminals, versus treating them like human beings who have a need or desire to live in some version of an altered state.

He also spends a great deal of time tracing the life, persecution, and death of Billie Holiday — a sad, sick tale. With a solid presentation of statistics and research, Hari shares the results of new social experiments in places like Vancouver, Portugal, England, Switzerland, and the state of Washington, where social scientists are turning conventional wisdom on its ears. Should you be so inclined, you’ll find info about it here.

Over time, I’ve gone up and down on the subject(s) of the War on Drugs, the ‘just say no’ policy, addiction, recovery, the glorification of intoxicants and legalization. Seems like it should be something we’ve figured out by now. You might recall that old public service announcement with the scary image — this is your brain, this is your brain on dope. But it’s really not like that for most recreational users. Unlike myself, the vast majority of people can pick it up and put it down with ease. So this week’s ramble is probably less an advocation and more of a reality check.

If we keep doing the same things over and over and it doesn’t work, why not change it?

This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.