It’s been some time since I’ve posted an update about the activities of my band The Four Fathers, so I’m hoping to amend that by posting some recent videos — of ‘Rebel Soldier’ and ’Masters of War’, recorded at a street party in Brockley, in south east London, of ‘Grenfell’, recorded at a summer solstice party in the Old Tidemill Garden in Deptford, and of another song from that party, ‘Kicking the Poor’, used as a housing campaign song in Lewisham, where I live.

‘Rebel Soldier’, a driving reggae number, is an old folk song, which I gave a new tune and a reggae groove more years ago than I care to remember, while living in Brixton after I left university. It’s been a live favourite since The Four Fathers first started four years ago, and we generally open our set with it. The studio recording, from our first album, ‘Love and War’, is here, and the live video is also on Facebook here.

‘Masters of War’ was written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1963, and, sadly, its sentiments remain just as relevant today as they were back then. It’s another live favourite, and another song we’ve been playing regularly since we first got together in 2014. The studio recording isn’t available online, but it is on the CD of ‘Love and War’, which you can buy here. Our second album, How Much Is A Life Worth? is also available on CD or to download, and you can also individually download any of our songs. Prices start at just 60p. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I’m posting the second of three new Four Fathers videos on our YouTube channel — of us playing our cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’, a live favourite — also featured on the CD of our first studio album, ‘Love and War.’ The video was recorded on April 28 at our most recent gig at Vinyl Deptford, a great record shop in London SE8, which has a wonderful little rock and roll basement, and our thanks to Ellen for making the videos.

We’ve played Vinyl many times before, but this was our first time with our new bassist, Mark Quiney, who joined us at the start of the year, and we hope you enjoy it, and will share it if you do.

I would’ve written an original anti-war song myself, but when The Four Fathers started, three years ago, a version of ‘Masters of War’ just fell into place, and it’s such a powerful song, with such direct and compelling lyrics — from Bob Dylan’s early incarnation as a folk singer and a protest singer — that it made me put aside my own notions of writing an anti-war song until last year, when I wrote ‘How Much Is A Life Worth?’, the title track of our forthcoming second album, which, as well as dealing with war, also focuses on terrorism, the refugee crisis and the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US. Read the rest of this entry »

Buy our album here!

Below are the last two videos from an event before Christmas at Deptford Cinema, a community cinema in south east London, when I talked about Guantánamo, and my band The Four Fathers played a set of political songs. I spoke about my ten years of research, writing and campaigning about Guantánamo, including the We Stand With Shaker campaign that I launched in November 2014 with the activist Joanne MacInnes to secure the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who was finally freed on October 30 after nearly 14 years in US custody.

Following my talk, The Four Fathers played eight songs — “Song for Shaker Aamer,”  the song I wrote that was featured in the campaign video for We Stand With Shaker, updated to reflect Shaker’s release, my roots reggae anthem “Fighting Injustice,” band member Richard Clare’s song “She’s Back” (about Pussy Riot), a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” and four other songs of mine, “Tory Bullshit Blues” and “81 Million Dollars,” about the US torture program ($81m being the amount that was paid, by the Bush administration, to two contractors, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who set up and ran the program), and the new songs “Riot” and “London.”

You can buy our album “Love and War” here, as an eight-track download, or on CD with two extra tracks (including “Masters of War”) — or you can buy tracks individually from just 60p ($0.93) each, although you’re welcome to pay more to support us. Read the rest of this entry »