Free MP3: “M.L.K.” by The Entrance Band

The Entrance Band: Guy Blakeslee, Derek W. James, and Paz Lenchantin. Photo by Angel Ceballos. One of my favorite songs from the past year is this endearingly earnest civil-rights anthem by The Entrance Band, a Los Angeles psych-rock band fronted by singer-guitarist Guy Blakeslee. “We Shall Overcome” it ain’t, nor does it bear any resemblance to John Mayer’s insufferable 2006 call to apathy, “Waiting on the World to Change.” Between roller-coaster guitar riffs worthy of the Mothers of Invention, Blakeslee testifies to the power and continued relevance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s meaning and message. “What I’m trying to say in the song is don’t forget him, don’t forget his spirit, don’t forget how much he and the people who worked with him were willing to risk for things that we take for granted now, or that we may not even have yet,” Blakeslee told me over the phone on Friday. In a startingly mean-spirited review (seriously, did Blakeslee steal this dude’s girlfriend or something?), Pitchfork’s Stephen M. Deusner complained that “M.L.K.” has “all the gravity of a grade-school book report,” but I would argue that the song’s simplicity is its chief virtue. The world of underground rock has enough songs whose lyrics are buried under so many layers of protective irony that no one knows what the hell they’re about. And when it comes to writing rock lyrics, an eighth-grade book report is a much better model than, say, a graduate-school thesis. (Then again, Deusner may be more right than he knows: Blakeslee says that, when he was in the eighth grade, he wrote a 20-page paper about the relative merits of Dr. King’s non-violence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary” militance.) In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we asked the band’s management if they’d let us share the MP3 with you, our dear readers. Click through for a free download, tour dates, and more from my interview.

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