It takes a special kind of person to singlehandedly spark a thunderous clapping session in a dark room full of too cool twenty-somethings. But by the end of Matt Embree's acoustic set at Koos Art Center in Long Beach, any worries of judgment or anxiety had been sucked out of the front doors of the paint slathered gallery to freeze in the midnight air. Huddled together in the darkness, unity and power spread like a fever in the crowd.
Embree, lead singer/guitarist of the OC-based experimental sk
When the news gets especially grim, as it has in the last couple of weeks (another Great Depression looming? Environmental disaster on the horizon? Jack Johnson headlining Coachella? We're fucked, people.), I turn to Curtis Mayfield's mellifluous voice and uplifting funk/soul symphonies for relief.
However, the tune under review for this week's Video Savant actually reflects the darkness of America's early-'70s socio-political climate (especially the racial tension), and forces us to realize t
