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Fascist Architecture (remastered 2021)

from STREET MUSIC (REMIXES & SPIN​-​OFFS) by Johnny J Blair "Singer at Large"

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about

A song about the politics of the ego and the soul. This recording was produced by Jonny Vitus and made in an old pasta factory in North Beach, San Francisco, in the same neighborhood as Beat Generation coffee houses and spots where they filmed “Dirty Harry” movies. The song was written by (San Francisco resident) Bruce Cockburn. His arrangement was in an urban folk style. I translated it after my bike messenger experiences on the sky-scrapered streets of San Francisco, punk-ing up the tempo and arrangement with a nod to The Alarm and the first Pretenders album.

Cockburn described the song as…“Bombastic, exaggeratedly heroic, it mocks the humanity it purports to glorify. It is overpowering, cold and makes you think of the baby sacrificing scenes in biblical movies. Sometimes we build structures like this in our own minds...The image 'fascist architecture' came from Italy. It was stuff that was built during Mussolini's period that was a particular style where the buildings are larger that life and what is supposed to celebrate the greatness of humanity actually dwarfs humanity…it makes you fell tiny and helpless next to it, and everybody hates that stuff. It seemed to me a suitable image for the things in ourselves, the structures we build that are built on false expectations or pretenses…the things we pretend to ourselves. Then when some catastrophe comes your way, like a marriage breaking up or some other thing, those things crack and you get glimpses through them, the light comes through... It's not a comfortable thing."—from the publication CLOSER TO THE LIGHT by Paul Zollo, 1994.

Song copyright 1980 by Bruce Cockburn/High Romance Music Ltd. Published by Golden Mountain Music Corp. and Rocksong Music Publishing Ltd.

credits

from STREET MUSIC (REMIXES & SPIN​-​OFFS), released February 23, 2017
JJB: bass, guitar, vocals
Jonny Vee: drums, lead guitar, mixing

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Johnny J Blair "Singer at Large" San Francisco, California

"Johnny is a virtuoso"--Brian Wilson
"Pop music with a conscience.”--Goldmine
“the Harry Houdini of rock and roll.”-- Spotlight. Listen to Johnny's fast-paced mix of old school soul, psychedelia, punk/new wave, & classic pop/rock. Singer-songwriter in his own right, he was also a sideman for Davy Jones and The Monkees + performed with David Cassidy, Al Stewart, Buddy & Julie Miller, & others. ... more

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