Mark is a virtuoso musician who can tear up some bass. He also plays pretty much every instrument, and has recently released an album, Southern Discomfort, where the variety of acoustic instruments are so well played and so well recorded it's beautiful to hear.
Mark sent me a download of his record with the understanding that I would write him a review. I would have done so in a timely manner but there was a hitch. The album cover art is a really punk rock picture with a confederate flag and a bunch of Jewish symbols and KKK hoods and a noose. It's disturbing; but the song about the lynching of Leo Frank (true story of an innocent Jewish man taken and killed by a mob in 1915) is what made me stop and think.
The thing that got to me was that although we all have a lot of reasons to want to pretend that it's not so, not so much has changed, since then. It was not even that long ago. How much has the moral character of our fellows been uplifted in so short a time, or has it at all?
What people are capable of as individuals or as representatives of groups is daily on display, and from what I've seen I would be pressed to say what they are not capable of. In the context of this record, it's a sobering thought. Point being, if this crowd turns ugly, it's a mob.
So that truth, a heavy one, is to me kind of the point of the album. The ease of research in these days will quickly reward an inquiry into the past and recent history of hate crime. For a general discussion to begin on the culture of racism and violence, in this country and in these times, the time has come.
We have to thank Mark Rubin, an artist very busy perfecting his art for taking the trouble for bringing up this subject which I, like most, from fear have long sought to avoid.
