Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies

For anyone who loved Jellyfish but wished they had explicated a political philosophy, allow me to present Bobby Conn’s The Homeland, a hyper-psych smashup of Howard Zinn and Diamond Dogs that manages to dazzle at least twice as often as it baffles. There’s always been a restlessness to Conn’s glam that serves him well as he takes on a public zombified by fear, media and assorted George Bushes. Indeed, the times need Ritalin more than our fourth-graders, and midsong genre-hopping on The Homeland seems less like showing off than like a commitment to verisimilitude. Highlights include a Prince disco freakout; a Clear-Channel-is-taking-over-the-world singalong; and “Home Sweet Home,” a classic Queen ballad in which Conn romps with a Wurlitzer in the psyche of his countrymen: I got a gun by every door/And I’m free to live my life in constant fear. Glam won’t stop the bastards touting Missouri’s concealed-weapons law, but it is proof the rest of us know how to have a fuck of a lot more fun.