Whitewash: A Musical Revue of the JFK Assassination Coverup

by Paul Kangas, with Joe Tate, Mr. X, J. R. Ryan, Rabia, the Bongos

This compilation comes from Paul Kangas, whose essay on George Bush's connection to the JFK assassination was reprinted back in Steamshovel Press #4. He wants to use this music in part to take advantage of George Bush, Jr.'s presidential bid to publicize the information in that essay. Whitewash is an extraordinarily humorous collection of reggaefied tunes that present in song details, ideas, theories and facts about the JFK assassination. Just as a for instance, check out these lyrics from the tape's best track, "Three Little Tramps": "Could the tall one by Jimmy Shlesinger?/And what about the runt?/Could it be a Dicky Helms/Or maybe Howard Hunt?/The one in front, we'll never know/Does he look like Ross Perot?....Lee Bowers was in the railroad tower/In Dallas on that day/He gave eyewitness testimony/About how Jack got blown away/He was overlooking the grassy knoll/Where he saw the riflemen stroll/He took a look and his blood ran cold/This is what Lee Bowers said: "I saw the smoke/I heard the report. There's trouble in the land/An ambush of the president, I just don't understand/After Bowers testified to the Warren Commission/His automobile ended up in a very funny position/It lost its transmission/And he ended up in a funny position/Dead. Very dead. DOA" There's a level of detail here not found in most popular music about the event, delivered in a funny way but with good scholarship and a serious point. Whitewash re-animates the assassination and its lore, demonstrating again its continued rock'n'roll relevance to today's politics, even as Bush himself attempts to recede into history. The revue ends with a lecture rant by Kangas called "Prosecute Bush!" It may seem dated to some, but everyone knows that Bush is still out there affecting things, and the questions that this tape is dedicated to remain important. Bongos founder Rob Norris and his songwriting partner Jeff Cohen contributed "Public Execution" after viewing the Stone JFK movie, saying that it catalyzed their feelings into creating a primal scream of furious anger on the order of the Beatles' "Revolution." The tape can be ordered from Paul Kangas' radio station in San Francisco, KPOO- FM, or through information found by clicking on the cover above.

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