Thanks Kelsey!

Short Shorts Playlist - 03/22/07 w/Ocha la Rocha
Current mood: Dude, seriously.
Category: Dude, seriously. Music

Short Shorts Playlist - 03/22/07 w/ Johnny & Chad (Ocha la Rocha)

I Don't Want to Be Left - Anna Kramer
Are You Washed? - Louvin Brothers
Panama Red - New Riders of the Purple Sage
Carmelita - Warren Zevon
Homemade Wine - Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Country Girl - Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Valium Blues - Entrance
Nick Space Set 2 - Crooked Cowboy
Ocillations - Silver Apples
Sympathetic Noise - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Twenty-six Days - Ocha la Rocha
4 & 20 - Crosby, Stills & Nash
Dead Flowers - Townes Van Zandt (Rolling Stones cover)
Astronaut Song - Ocha la Rocha
Apeman - Kinks
Love - Zoe
On the Last Ride - Tripsichord
Lost on the Way - Rolla
Fears - Mistress
Part V - Bobby Beausoleil/Lucifer Rising Soundtrack
Katrina - Black Lips (live)
08 - Drakkar Sauna
Cash on the Barrelhead - Gram Parsons (Louvin Brothers cover)
Sunday Best - Turquoise
Bubble Gum the Blues /I'm Cruising - Emmitt Rhodes
A Dairymaid's Lament - Red Crayola
Any Way That You Want Me - Troggs
So Simon - Ocha la Rocha (live, on Little Radio)

Construction of the Georgia State Capitol building was completed on March 20, 1889 at a final cost of $999,881.57; $118.40 shy of the allocated budget.

Politicians patted themselves on the back for a job well done and on the 4^th of July, 1889 then Governor Gordon, at a celebratory commencement, said these words:

"Built upon the crowning hill of her capital city, whose transformation from desolation and ashes to life, thrift and beauty, so aptly symbolizes the State's resurrection, this proud structure will stand through the coming centuries a fit memorial of the indomitable will of this people."

And so it has. Stood that is. The will of the people, however, changed considerably.

In 1889 the state of Georgia was a beacon of racist mantra almost unrivaled in the United States, and its Capitol stood as an antebellum symbol of the power of twisted democracy.

Walking the marble encrusted halls of the Capitol 116 years later feels like sauntering to a beautiful piece of classical music commissioned by Mussolini.

The building is inspiring. In the same way visiting a wax museum is inspiring.

Everywhere you look there are mementos from the dark past juxtaposed against modern convenience. It's as if the current inhabitants can't decide which is more powerful, a tainted but ornate past or a just but sterile present.

On the first floor a row of finely crafted oil paintings of Georgia's original governors dead ends into an office filled with beeping and flashing phones and faxes.

On the second floor, plastic televisions which display the action from the state legislature are mounted straight through hand carved marble walls. This floor also serves as the coffee break area for state representatives, lobbyists, and journalists.

The Capitol is, after all, a place of government; an active breathing singular organism created for the convenience of efficient legislating. E Pluribus Unum.

On the third floor the general public can glide their way through ten foot wooden doors into balcony theatre seats and observe the behavior of the state government in person.

With any luck boredom will win in a matter of minutes and the tour can continue to the fourth floor which houses the State Museum, a collection of pre-historic artifacts, guns, rocks, animals, and other eclectic items gathered and displayed due to their loose relevance to Georgia. For years the museum has owned a perfectly preserved two-headed snake which is displayed right beside a fairly well preserved two-headed calf.

After failing to take Madrid by frontal assault General Francisco Franco gave orders for the road that linked the city to the rest of Republican Spain to be cut. A Nationalist force of 40,000 men, including men from the Army of Africa, crossed the Jarama River on 11th February, 1937.

General José Miaja sent three International Brigades including the Dimitrov Battalion and the British Battalion to the Jarama Valley to block the advance. On 12th February, at what became known as Suicide Hill, the Republicans suffered heavy casualties. Tom Winteringham, the British commander, was forced to order a retreat back to the next ridge. The Nationalist then advanced up Suicide Hill and were then routed by Republican machine-gun fire.

However, on the right flank, the Nationalists forced the Dimitrov Battalion to retreat. This enabled the Nationalists to virtually surround the British Battalion. Coming under heavy fire the British, now only 160 out of the original 600, had to establish defensive positions along a sunken road.

Led by Robert Merriman, the 373 members of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion moved into the trenches on 23rd February. When the were ordered over the top they were backed by a pair of tanks from the Soviet Union. On the first day 20 men were killed and nearly 60 were wounded.

On 27th February 1937, Colonel Vladimir Copic, the Yugoslav commander of the Fifteenth Brigade, ordered Merriman and his men to attack the Nationalist forces at Jarama. As soon as he left the trenches Merrimen was shot in the shoulder, cracking the bone in five places. Of the 263 men who went into action that day, only 150 survived. One soldier remarked afterwards: "The battalion was named after Abraham Lincoln because he, too, was assassinated."

Edwin Rolfe survived but wrote: "When we were pulled out of the lines I felt very tired and lonely and guilty. Lonely because half of the battalion had been badly shot up. And guilty because I felt I didn't deserve to be alive now, with Arnold and Nick and Paul dead."

Fred Copeman was wounded but survived. He later wrote about meeting Kit Conway at the hospital at Jarma: "Kit was obviously dying. The simple sincerity of people like Kit makes the struggle for social justice the inspiring thing it is. Kit was in terrible agony, and yet his one concern was that he may have been responsible for the slaughter that had taken place. Six hundred and thirty men had entered the line and there were not more than eighty left unwounded, and the percentage of killed was very high. It was hard to convince him that our fighting had taken place in the toughest, bloodiest battle of the whole Spanish campaign, and that it had been decisive in the defence of the Madrid-Valencia road."

source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPjarama.htm

Over the course of the last year Ocha la Rocha has worked closely with a local producer named Kris Sampson . Kris is, among other things, a skilled musician, producer and engineer who has helped our band out of its infancy to become the toddlers we are today. Sampson and the people he works with at Nickel and Dime Studios have made it possible for us to create some lovely demos and start spreading our music around the world. Give them a call should you need a recording or two. They'll treat you right.

-Ocha la Rocha

The 'live' room @ N&D: