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Stuewe: A sign of hope in modern music

The band State Radio invokes emotion, involves crowd at the Bottleneck

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By Liz Stuewe

Monday, March 5, 2007

I complain a lot, in print, to my friends and to anyone who will listen, about the sad state of contemporary music. I have called it “shallow” and “heartless.” But after seeing the band State Radio I know now that I am wrong. On Feb. 23 the Boston band State Radio played to a loyal, rowdy group of fans at the Bottleneck.

The trio made up of former Dispatch front man Chad Urmstom, Chuck Fay and Mike Najarian create uncommonly good music about uncommon topics. All three members of the band are incredibly talented and they play their reggae-rock inspired music with energy and sing-along melodies. Their Web site describes them as combining the “anti-establishment politics of Rage Against the Machine (with) the revolutionary lyrics of Bob Marley.” At the Bottleneck, they demonstrated their ability to address uncommon issues eloquently by playing songs about everything from war to elderly rights and challenges of the lower class.

Anti-war rhetoric can often get overwhelming and frustrating, especially as the situation in Iraq gets worse and worse, but the song “Camilo”, performed on Feb. 23, offers a breath of fresh air. Urmstom wrote the song in 2004 after Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia was imprisoned for refusing to fight in Iraq.

It is a beautiful song, but what makes it special is that it is more than just a song: it’s an anthem for action. Listening to the ecstatic crowd sing along with Urmstom, “oh my country won’t you call out?” cannot help but inspire both hope and faith. It inspires not only faith in contemporary music, but hope that no matter what problems our country faces we can overcome them.

Stuewe is a Lawrence junior in political science and American studies.

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