Music can often be the clearest window on politics.

Chris Brown is hoping that's the case with his GasCD concert at the Phoenix tonight.

The show includes performances by Barenaked Ladies Steven Page, Jim Creegan and Tyler Stewart, Ron Sexsmith, and The Rheostatics. It's an offshoot of the GasCD benefit album Brown put together after getting tear-gassed at the anti-globalization protests at the Summit Of The Americas in Quebec City a year ago.

Proceeds from the concert and the album, which featured BNL and Sarah Harmer, go to the legal defence for protesters arrested at the Summit.

"Music is a wonderful way to convey issues and ideas," says Brown, a Toronto-raised singer-songwriter and sometime Barenaked Ladies sideman who makes his home in New York City.

"But you have to do it slowly without diluting those issues. If you candy-coat it you could get a lot more people involved, but under false pretenses."

Brown has his work cut out for him: The anti-globalization issues are complicated, a fact that isn't helped by corporate spin-doctoring. Where protest concerts often end up preaching to the converted -- or to the apathetic -- Brown just wants to get people talking.

"Shortly after the Barenaked Ladies agreed to be on the album, Tyler Stewart e-mailed me and said their entire chat page was filled with kids asking questions about the FTAA," says Brown.

"Some were supportive of the Ladies' involvement, others said they couldn't believe the Ladies were backing up these 'hoodlums.' It's great that dialogue like that is taking place on a band website. If people are talking it eventually points toward the truth."