Phil Ochs. He sang at the Chicago Seven trial. He's been dragged out for every rally from here to Golden Gate Park. Phil Ochs must be very tired now, because not only has he weathered years and years of fruitless radical protest, and the anti-war movement almost from the beginning, but his vehicle--guitar-strumming folkiness--has an introverted, "I am pained" aspect that makes his mission doubly exhausting. Indeed, he didn't show up at a gig in Lenox last weekend, and reports have it that Ochs is highly difficult to get along with nowadays. Maybe it's worrying about the Dylan comparison (he makes it--nobody else does)--the political Ochs is a grand martyr. Anyway, I always found his songs too indulgent and War-is-not-healthy-for-children-and-other-things-ish to make effective leftist propaganda, and his tunes get redundant. The big exception is "Small Circle of Friends." At Passim's tonight and tomorrow.