Grant-Lee Phillips may best be known as the front man for Grant Lee Buffalo, however Phillips’ career as a musician started with his first band, Shiva Burlesque, who recorded two albums prior to Phillips forming Grant Lee Buffalo with Joey Peters and Paul Kimble in 1991. With critical acclaim and a couple of “Modern Rock” hits, the band have a creative, highly literate body of work to their name. In 2000, Phillips began a solo career and recently released a new album Little Moon. This Friday November 20th, Phillips performs on a double bill Free At Noon along with Bob Schneider and on Saturday night November 21st plays a full show at World Cafe Live.

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Michael Moore’s new documentary Capitalism – A Love Story is stirring, entertaining, at times heartbreaking. The director of such lasting works as Roger and Me, Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko goes into the belly of the beast to understand the corrosive practices that led to the recent catastrophes on Wall Street, to record level job loss and the pandemic foreclosure of homes across the United States. Not a pretty picture. Moore, in a style unique to him, manages to inform, to stimulate dialogue, to bring levity and to inspire along
the way.

Capitalism – A Love Story touches upon the 2008 worker occupation of Republic Windows & Doors Factory of Chicago. It’s a scene reminiscent of another sepia toned era when workers rights were valiantly fought for in the 1930s. Capitalism is a personal film, even featuring some
super-8 footage from Moore’s own childhood. There are some who take issue with a documentary filmmaker possessing a point of view, believing it would inevitably spawn propaganda. Moore is upfront with his motivations, however. Over the last 20 years we’ve gotten to know him, to trust him and, in some crowds, to loathe him. Admittedly, I’m a fan. In a piece of film footage almost never seen, as if from the grave, President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks of what he termed a Second Bill Of Rights that would insure the basic necessities of home, access to healthcare and a good education among other things. These moments and such high performance art as when Moore wraps the entire New York Stock Exchange building in yellow crime scene tape make Capitalism – A Love Story well worth the hard earned price of admission.