Local music impresario Arden Eaton releases compilation at event Friday.

Multi-instrumentalist Joe Craven has only written a couple of songs with lyrics. The string and percussion instrument virtuoso, who recently ended a 17-year run as a member of the David Grisman Quintet and has recorded three solo CDs, was inspired to write one of the songs, “Hattie and the Hedgehog,” after his daughter was born. Craven was compelled to write another number, titled “Setting Son,” as a contribution to local resident and KPIG DJ Arden Eaton’s new pro-peace compilation CD, Take Me Home.

Craven says what prompted him to pen the number was his strong feelings about the current situation in Iraq. “It inspired me to put down in words what I feel,” he says.

Take Me Home will raise money for the nonprofit organization Veterans for Peace. Eaton used her connections in the music industry to garner contributions from regional singer/songwriters like Sherry Austin and Keith Greeninger. In addition, Eaton staged a coupe by receiving tracks from ‘60s icons Country Joe McDonald, of Country Joe and the Fish fame, and Jesse Colin Young, former leader of The Youngbloods and a respected solo singer/songwriter.

Eaton says she was inspired to create the CD after witnessing the anti-war efforts of Cindy Sheehan and traveling to Washington, DC in the fall of last year for a large peace march. This past October, she sent e-mails asking for contributions from about 20 acts, a large number of which had performed on her local cable channel music show Arden’s Garden. From October to mid-February, Eaton worked on the CD whenever she could find any free time. “I’ve been very obsessed with it,” she says. “I’m glad my husband has been supportive.”

Eaton sees the theme of Take Me Home as pro-peace rather than anti-war: “I was really trying to make it a peace album, because who in their right mind is not for peace?”

The finished product represents a wide range of attitudes about peace and war. Dennis McGregor’s “Caught in Your War” radiates optimism over folky instrumentation, while McDonald is defiant on “Support the Troops,” which sounds a bit like a classic Neil Young number. Craven’s “Setting Son” is an eclectic percussion-heavy piece played on found items, including an old army helmet, and invented instruments like the neck of a bass guitar attached to a jeep’s gas can.

“I think it comes from a lot of different perspectives,” Eaton says of the release. “It’s just a collection of community voices.”

Eaton is hoping that she can get some national publicity for Take Me Home. She says she sent copies of the CD to a wide range of high-profile media people including Oprah Winfrey and the New York Times.

“I’ve spent a lot of money on postage,” she admits.

Locally, Eaton is getting the word out with a CD release party and peace event occurring this Friday night at Carlton Hall in Monterey. The three-hour long event will feature speeches by Bill Dallman of Veterans for Peace, Valori George of the Monterey Peace and Justice Center and George Riley of the Peace Coalition of Monterey County, along with a screening of the 30-minute long documentary The Ground Truth, which features a series of interviews with American soldiers who have returned from the Iraq War.

The music portion of the evening will include short sets by Take Me Home contributors Sherry Austin, Lisa Atkinson, Keith Greeninger, Joe Paquin and Geoffrey Rutledge, along with a 45-minute set courtesy of Joe Craven.  

Eaton hopes that the CD (available at Monterey’s Recycled Records, Carmel’s Do Re Mi Records, Santa Cruz’s Etc., Etc., Etc. and on the Internet at cdbaby.com/cd/takemehome) and release party does more than just raise money for Veterans for Peace. She wants her efforts to spur peace advocates to become peace activists.

THE TAKE ME HOME CD RELEASE PARTY AND PEACE EVENT takes place at Carlton Hall, 400 W. Franklin St. in Monterey, Friday, March 24 at 6pm. $20/advance at Monterey’s Recycled Records, Carmel’s Do Re Mi Records and Santa Cruz’s Etc., Etc., Etc; $25/at the door. For more information, go to ardensgarden.org.