Monday, September 08, 2008
KICK OUT THE JAMS!
40 years ago there was a Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the band playing as the tear gas was drifting in and the choppers were flying low over head and the cops were busting heads was Detroits MC5.
I posted a video of the band, Rage Against The Machine playing in St. Paul at the Republican National Convention last week. They were shut down by the police and kept playing in spite of having no power.
The week earlier, they played another convention, The DNC in Denver and it was not shut down and one of the high points was a guest appearance of Wayne Kramer, the lead guitarist of the MC5. They play Kick Out The Jams...a song while not overtly political in content, was one of the most potent revolutionary anthemns of its time. It was a celebration of total freedom.
Wayne proves again that after 40 years, he still can sonically blast anything in his path to smithereens! His guitar solo is awesome!
On Wayne's solo record, Citizen Wayne produced by David Was, there is a piece called On The Ground which is a pretty good MC5 style version of that day in 1968 when the MC5 Kicked Out The Jams in a tear gas filled park in Chicago.
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3 comments:
I have a total love hate relationship with Rage Against the Machine- probably one of my favorite bands ever. I saw them when they first came out while I was serving in the USMC in California. I was completely blown away. Their first CD is a CD I can listen to over and over again and never grow tired of it. But their simpleton, almost Goebbles like propaganda for overt communism is laughable. They take complex political issues and distill them down into mere slogans and take conspiracy theory and elevate it to fact. You know like "They murdered "X" and tried to blame it on Islam".. The US is no Saint in the world obviously, but don't gloss over the horrors of communism and use freedom of speech to trash your home country. I guess what I'm saying is that America doesn't need any more sloganeering, any more talking points, any more simpleton distractions. We need someone to miraculously infuse the voting public with critical thinking skills.. In short we need a working public school system to give people the thinking skills to call bullshit bullshit, or lipstick on a pig...
Oh yeah, and I just want to add that there's a band that you may like and have never heard of called "Anti-Flag". They have incredibly astute and intelligent lyrics packaged in this sort of teen style punk pop. Check them out.
Thanks for the comments...I agree about Rage...but that's the trouble with trying to create political pop..
Look at the political music of the 60's...The message of the MC5 was basically sex drugs and fucking in the streets...which was a lot was easier to sing about than the logic of class struggle.
That's why intelligent rap is so much more powerful as a tool for communicating ideas. I'd love to post some more French stuff, but you'd have to have a translation.
There is some pretty powerful and artistically noble work being done by real poets.
There is a young black rapper, Abd al Malik who is working with Jacques Brel's arranger and small Jazz combos to frame his work...it is stunning.
There is not enough stuff like this in mainstream American pop. There is a lot of music, but it gets lost in the mix.
I think Tom Morello's solo project, The Nightwatchman comes across as being much more philosophically interesting.
Wayne Kramer is playing a lot on that project.
I will check out ant-flag and if I can find anything worth posting, I will do it! Stay tuned!
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