suburbanradical

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Writer of the Week: 

Slaid Cleaves

Historically, America has been known as the “Promised Land,” but Austin-based songwriter Slaid Cleaves has vowed to never again call it that. In his newest album, Still Fighting The War, Cleaves explores American life from a grittier perspective – through the eyes of disenchanted war veterans, blue-collar workers and people from small towns just trying to get by. The album doesn’t drop until June 18, but American Songwriter’s Mike Berick has already dubbed it “one of the year’s best singer-songwriter albums.” We talked with Cleaves about songwriting, the inspiration behind Still Fighting The War and more.

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Ken Tucker on the new album, Still Fighting the War, from Texas singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves:

He writes and sings songs primarily about working-class people and romantics both hopeful and hopeless. That said, it’s also not difficult to hear another element of the fortysomething Cleaves’ past: He was an English and philosophy major at Tufts, and his lyrics are underpinned by both a fine sense of meter and moral perspicacity.

Image via Slaid Cleaves

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Slaid Cleaves - Rust Belt Fields

‘Cause they figured it out And shipped the elbow grease Down to Mexico And off to the Chinese And I learned a little something ‘Bout how things are No one gets a bonus For bloody knuckles and scars No one remembers your name Just for working hard

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The morning that I get to hell They'll play me my life on a tv so I see it all Everything I'd never tell

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Friday night concert - Thee Oh Sees.  84 minutes of them.  

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Fuck yeah

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Get me a lawn chair, a beach, and a drink.  

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AMERICAN MUSIC Ep 3: Natural Child (by OutOfFocus TV)

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Between 1990 and 2010, among the 34 countries in the OECD, the US dropped from 18th to 27th in age-standardized death rate. The US dropped from 23rd to 28th for age-standardized years of life lost. It dropped from 20th to 27th in life expectancy at birth. It dropped from 14th to 26th for healthy life expectancy. The only bit of good news was that the US only dropped from 5th to 6th in years lived with disability.

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Orphan Black - July 19, 2013 Entertainment Weekly Digital Edition - Panels 1-4 Shown

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Big Star - Thirteen

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A new book explains the link between the rise of antihero protaganists and the unprecedented abundance of great TV (and what Dick Cheney has to do with it).

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Jenny O - Automechanic

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Psychedelic mayhem

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2nd single from Foxygen's Jonathan Rado's Law and Order LP out September 3 on Woodsist Records http://www.woodsist.com/

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 A mere 3% of schools surveyed increased aid by as much as they increased tuition. The schools that do increase aid often target the aid at particularly desirable - and often wealthy - students to try to lure them onto campus. Studies show that the money for this "merit aid" mostly benefits the affluent and has come at the expense of money for the need-based aid that is essential to making the high-tuition, high-aid model work as intended.

In short, financial aid for the poor has become a poor program because the money gets used elsewhere.

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Texas state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg has become notorious in recent weeks for her authorship of a vicious anti-abortion bill (and her view that rape kits clean a woman out), and in the process of pushing her bill, Laubenberg has repeatedly referred to fetuses as babies. But back in 2007, when she was trying to limit prenatal careunder the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), it was a very different story.

Via Laura Clawson at Daily Kos