i heard ben harper cover sexual healing under the most bizarre of circumstances. i went to a ralph nader rally at madison square garden in 2000. the event was arranged on short notice and sold out in a day. it was to raise money for ralph's bid to get the green party 5% in the 2000 election. needless to say we all know how that all went down, but in new york, a "safe state" it was good to get all this positive energy in one room.

ani di franco did some political songs, one memorable one off her album up up up up, eddie vedder did "times they are a changin'", patti smith played "people have the power" and ben harper played... "sexual healing"?!? what the fuck?!? i remember being very confused and saying to a friend, "maybe he's wanting to get laid after the rally?" it seemed quite incongruous with the event, but amusing and, yeah, it was sung well but i wasn't paying much attention 'cos i was so bemused and confused by the experience.

what are the hymnals, rites and services of the psychedelic mind fucked church? so far burning man and dead tour have been the closest parallels that i've experienced in mass culture. "religions without beliefs" -- ritual without dogma. "all rites reversed" as the discordians say...

what are the hymns? anything from d"rop kick me jesus through the goal posts of life" and "shoot me up in the main line with a hypo full of love" to, uh, "amazing grace"?

in response to the greater point brought up by your post, i'd say that music in general is going through a major period of transformation. those of us who came of age from the fifties to the eighties, and even the nineties, had radio as the main way to disseminate music. the artists performed for the labels, the labels cut the deals and the radio stations got the labels the airplay they were looking for. so in many respects, the music was streamlined through the commercial / pop music industry. there were occassional moments when a rising star would beat a tired old formula and achieve greatness in spite of the tides that were against hir (him/her) but, alas, s/he always had to go against this commercial juggernaut.

i think radio is dead and conglomerates like clear channel are nailing in the final nails. we don't want homogenized commercial crap anymore. so there are all sorts of beautiful fusions happening from dance floor djs to "jambands" that don't mind mixing a cello into a psychedelic jazz combo or whatever comes to mind.

the music scene still suffers from genre-itis... electronic music has many innovators and far too many mediocre imitators. same with "jambands" (how many bands can be created that sound like phish or medeski martin and wood and does the public really care?) but in general i see the process by which direct marketing, which the punks exploited quite beautifully, really starting to work on a global scale. ani di franco's "righteous babe records" is but a single shining star in a sea of commercial "girl pop" or "indie folkie feminism" or whatever ism they've come up with to market the "angry woman folk singer" sound.

i do agree, however, that they threw away the mold after the temptations, aretha, marvin gaye and the r&b gods and goddesses of yesteryear. i still break out my marvin gaye at least once a month. played it about ten days ago, to be precise. and temptations, too. don't have enough aretha in my collection but i still speak of her with the utmost R-E-S-P-E-C-T.