George Tirado- Notes from an Occupied Chicano Nation

Spoken word, ranging from the punk rock stand-up comedy of Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra to the surreally blunt confessions of Lydia Lunch, occupies a weird middle ground between music, poetry, and politics. The work of George Tirado is deeply rooted in his political and ethnic identity, and he’s adept at the stream-of-consciousness evocation of poverty, street life, and urban apocalypse. He’s like Ginsberg for La Raza, weaving references to Schopenhauer into depictions of drug addicts, AIDS victims, and Zapatista rebels. Steve Piper, who produced this album, also contributes music, backing the quieter moments like “A Perfect View from My Window” with gently fingerpicked guitars and deepening the emotional impact of the amusing and self-deprecatingly-titled “One More Bad Bukowski Poem” with jazzy chords. While Tirado leaves little wiggle room in his militantly left political pieces, he avoids sinking into bland diatribes by keeping his imagery concrete and personal. On “509 Years,” which is fueled not only by Chicano rage but also by overdriven guitar riffs as angry and energetic as anything Rage Against The Machine ever put out, he ends a litany of invoked revolutionary heroes with a reference to his grandmother: “Yo soy Fidel Castro/Yo soy Che Guevara/Yo soy Mi Abuela/Rest in peace.” This should be required listening for anarchists, mixing an undiluted antiestablishment message with music and poetry that actually moves with rhythm and melody – definitely a welcome antidote to the insipid feel-good pap of less incendiary political poets.

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