With other accomplished songsmiths content to regurgitate past glories from their stay-at-home digs, the task of penning an uplifting anthem for our phantasmagoric times fell to the all-but-forgotten Men of Milk. With nothing less than the future of the free world at stake, could they deliver once more?
According to main milker Lory Kohn, they could and did, but: "I had to dig really deep. At this stage, turning 69 next month, I thought I'd be getting out and about, one guy and one guitar, performing solo acoustic versions of my greatest misses at discriminating listening rooms from Asheville to Big Sur. Hah! About the last thing on my mind was tackling an epic studio production—with a political theme, no less."
Well . . . what pulled the sexagenarian super-ager back in?
"Having time on my hands during a pandemic to watch all those people marching in the streets for Black Lives Matter. I never thought I'd see that kind of activism again in my lifetime. I took note that there was always some kind of music playing at those televised marches and rallies taking place all over the country—although none of it was purpose built. It seemed like the anti-Trumpism movement could use a "rallying cry," if you will, which addressed the immediate task at hand.
Oh? Just what was the immediate task at hand?
"Once it became readily apparent that no matter how many high-profile protests there were neither the executive branch or the Republican-controlled Senate was ever going to acknowledge that black lives matter—or lift a finger to release the thousands of Latino children they separated from their parents and locked in cages—the task I'm talking about was voting every single last Republican out.
How did "Vote Them Out!" go from idea to finished production?
"I had the music for a song with a strong Native American "pow wow" beat in my back pocket. But I hadn't come up with anything thematically to go along with it that I could really sink my teeth into. Then the "we will vote them out this fall" lyrics and melody popped into my head. It was so catchy and so simple that it was easy to visualize masses of people singing along to it. Once I saw that in my mind, there was no choice but to commit to the long, arduous process of writing, refining, and recording "Vote Them Out!" in, shall we say, less than ideal times and conditions. On the other hand, those less than ideal times and conditions were much easier to handle now that I was on a mission. Having an outlet to work through the feelings of helplessness and despair that anyone with an shred of compassion has had to endure under the Trump administration made me feel like I wasn't entirely powerless. Being fully engaged in a constructive project, instead of sitting idly by and stewing about what I couldn't control, made me feel one with time and space."
But work on "Vote Them Out!" got underway a mere three months before the election. What was it like trying to pull off an epic production with the clock ticking?
"Nervewracking! In the normal course of events, if I haven't done any serious recording for a while, I start off with the simplest productions, then work my way up to ever more demanding ones. Except that there wasn't any time to dilly-dally around with the election coming up right around the corner. There was no choice—I had to go for it right away, whether I was in top form or not. Unfortunately, things began going nowhere fast. At some point, I realized that trying to rush things was counterproductive. I had to take a step back and revert to my usual snail-like pace, which is what it is because I tend to try out a lot of different things until I figure out the the parts I feel will stand the test of time."
Speaking of songs that have stood the test of time, "Vote Them Out" seems to channel certain beloved Neil Young classics from a bygone era.
"Guilty! The intention was to capture the vibe of Neil's early 70s classics like "Cinnamon Girl," "When You Dance," and "Ohio." For you guitar players out there, that means drawing from his pioneering compositions in double-drop D tuning—a mode which made them stand out from the crowd in 1970 and keeps them fresh-sounding to this day. I had concerns that, some fifty years later, listeners might find that style a little dated . . . until Marcus Cliffe, the mix engineer who consistently intuited exactly what the song needed, pointed out that twentysomethings seem to love those songs just as much today as they did fifty years ago. Timeless is timeless . . . so I just forgot about what year it was, embraced those type of chords and that type of guitar sound, and went with it."
Where did that pounding pow wow beat and the war cries come from?
Lory has spent years living in a Taos casita overlooking sacred Indian land. That's where the pow wow beat comes from.
"Without reprising the entire horrific history of racial injustice in the United States, there were two groups who experienced it the most. One of them I've already mentioned, and the other, Native Americans, we don't think about as much for the simple reason that most of them have been exterminated. The ones who haven't been are exiled in out-of-the-way reservations where they're largely out-of-sight and out-of-mind. There's one notable exception: the Taos Pueblo Indians are the only Indians who got their land back. Their corner of God's green earth is one of the most awe-inspiring spots on the planet. I'm lucky enough to live right next to it, close enough to hear them drumming away for days on end at gatherings of the tribes. That's how and why a pow wow beat found its way into the production and why it's such a crucial element."
Lory performing on the rooftop of his Taos casita overlooking sacred Indian land.
"Vote Them Out!" has received a much-appreciated plug from musicologist and Twist and Shout Records owner Paul Epstein; Paul is also Co-Chair of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. Here's what he wrote in the latest issue of the Denver institution's newsletter:
In an ideal world "Vote Them Out! would have been released a lot sooner than six weeks before the 2020 election. Yet there's still time to pitch in, pass it on, and uplift fellow liberty-lovers before the most consequential election of our lives.
A download of "Vote Them Out!" is available to purchase here.
{Update 2/09/2024} I messed up in 2020. Well, after a lot of experimentation, I actually succeeded at creating my best production ever that's also probably our best mix ever … only it took so much time and effort that “Vote Them Out” wasn't mixed and mastered till the middle of September 2020. That left no time to market it with every potentially interested party already in a frenzy over getting Orange Face Man evicted from the White House. So, yeah, on that account I messed up.
It would have sucked to go to all that effort and have nothing to show for it, but, bless its black heart, MAGA forgot to go away after its Dear Leader was voted out. He's somehow back for another spanking, ten times more pyscho than he was four years earlier, which takes some doing. His minions have transformed the House of Representatives into an insane asylum. The existential need to vote every last one of them—like every Republican legislator or anyone running to be one—out (and keep the dictator in waiting on the outside looking in) in 2024 is even more urgent than it was last presidential election year. The MAGA Cruelty Show isn't going to stop running anytime between now and November. There are going to be dozens and dozens of times you'll yearn for a mental reset and “Vote Them Out” is going to be there for you to uplift you at the exact moments you're going to desperately need positive visualization.
There's another cause well worth mentioning. Anyone who's lurked here knows I've given away the entire Milkmen 100+-song Silo of Hits for free after spending endless hours and who knows how many dollars recording all those tunes. I'd resigned myself that 2018's Songlab, which included every song I'd been itching to produce for a decade, would be the last major Milkmen recording. It wasn't; “Vote Them Out” popped out in 2020. Strangely enough, in the succeeding four years, I don't seem to have grown dim-witted or become uncreative. It appears I have one last major recording left effort in me.
That's why I and democracy itself would greatly appreciate everyone buying “Vote Them Out” for a whopping two dollars and spreading the word amongst your friends to do the same to fund one last round of milkmania. I'm envisioning kind of a digital chain letter that you send to ten of your friends, they send it to ten of their friends, and so on.
You may have also noticed that I've provided hours and hours of entertaining reading material in this blog and in the LK Prose tab—which I've spent inordinate amounts of time writing and editing to brighten your days. I only wish I just spat it out and, presto, it reads like that. If only!
So, yeah, for the first time in the five years this site's been up I'm asking you for a donation. I'm not asking you to buy a $40 t-shirt or a $25 mug or even to send me five hard-earned bucks. Contributing $1.99—less than half the price of a pourover coffee—and getting “Vote Them Out” in return gives you something to lift your spirits as MAGA finds newer and more inventive ways to go lower and lower and me the wherewithall to keep depositing the assorted milk stuffs you know and love in your virtual milk boxes.
I want to save democracy just as much as you do. So, please, let's help each other out. Thanks for listening and good milking to all! —Lory