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Chicago may be missing out on the RATM reunion tour following the fest (though I’m sure their box office take will inspire at least one more victory lap), but we’ll get a special taste of shitty-political-rock history when Libertyville’s own Tom Morello comes to town for a pair of solo shows. On April 13 he’ll be playing Lake Forest College, and on April 14 he’ll be downtown at a protest/carnival thing for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food. He’ll be performing at both events as the Nightwatchman, the folk-singer persona he’s just now starting to go public with after what seems to be a fairly lengthy gestation. Morello’s an inventive and complex guitarist, but the Nightwatchman is stunningly straightforward and by-the-numbers. If you’ve never lived in a college town or been to a coffee house you may be unfamiliar with the kind of earnest, uninteresting folk jams he’s putting down, but probably not. The folk-dude-who-reads-MIM-Notes archetype is practically unavoidable.
So basically, Tom Morello’s folk music is pretty shitty, but McDonald’s is way shittier, so don’t let bad tunes keep you from doing the power-to-the-people thing.
