Politics and music.
During the uprising of anarchy and the evolution of counter-culture in America during the 1930s and 1960s, music played an important role in expressing feelings - both positive and negative - of where America was going.
Woody Guthrie was the main musician in a great American tradition in the 1930s - the man who figured out how to merge culture with politics.
Then, in the 1960s, Bob Dylan took over.
His persuasive presence attracted hundreds of professional imitators and, on every high school and college campus in America, millions of amateur followers.
Over the years there has been a plethora of bands and individuals of different genres that expressed political beliefs through their music, including Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Billy Bragg and Primal Scream.
A song written by Consolidated called “College Radio” is based on the fact that today, six companies control more than half of the media outlets in America.
In 1983, prior to Federal Communications Commission deregulation, 50 companies shared the same power.
Motor City politics
Another band, this one closer to home, that stirred up some controversy was Detroit-based MC5 (along with tour buddies The Stooges).
Wayne Kramer, MC5’s former guitarist, has a positive opinion about bands expressing political beliefs through music.
“I think the real power we have as artists is in the songs,” Kramer said. “It’s in the songs that we tell the stories of our hopes, aspirations and dreams.
“We tell the identity of who we are and what we stand for. That’s the point where we all meet.”
And Kramer said the role of artists is integral to the process of political change.
“Some of it is unglamorous,” he said. “It’s not sexy and it’s not MTV-ready. It’s hard work and it means sacrifice and principles.”
When Kramer performed with the MC5, the group was the “perfect target for the double cross,” he said.
“Any time you take a stand, you’ve opened yourself to slings and arrows to an outrageous fortune,” he said. “In the MC’s case, we took an extremely militant stance and any time you take a stance, you make equal - if not more powerful - stances from the authorities.”
Kramer said the aspect of the band that generated the most interest was also the thing that hurt them the most.
“We were in the record business during a time when the record business wasn’t interested in left-wing politics and were only interested in the business of making money,” he said.
Kramer recalled an incident when the MC5 brought a whole lot of trouble with it, including local police, parental groups, local prosecutors, FBI agents, all the way up to the White House. The Justice Department wanted to distance itself, he said.
“Here, on one hand, we were trying to be a rock band carrying a message and as long as our messages didn’t upset anybody and made money, they were all for it,” he said.
“As soon as our messages involved political and legal problems, they all bailed.”
Dick Rosemont, co-owner of Flat, Black and Circular, 541 E. Grand River Ave., saw the MC5 perform in the late 1960s and said a band’s decision to be political depends on whether or not it wants to be aligned with something.
“If a group plays at a national political party convention, does that associate them with that candidate?,” Rosemont said. “To some extent, but some bands who are never labeled political still play at fund-raisers for given candidates today.”
Local bands get political
A few East Lansing bands have even dabbled in political causes lately, including Steppin’ In It and Under Construction. Steppin’ In It rocked a Ralph Nader support rally during the 2000 Presidential campaign and Under Construction performed at an Al Gore rally in front of at least 5,000 supporters.
Jesse Young, Under Construction’s lead vocalist and guitarist, said the event gave people who may have been undecided the opportunity to hear Gore speak and listen to what he had to say.
“Our entertainment is just another medium of a form of expression,” Young said. “It’s another way of getting a message out there instead of having someone out there speaking it. I think it’s a good idea.”
Additionally, a national band that reaped mainstream success from its controversial political lyrics was heavy rockers Rage Against the Machine.
But Michael Krueger, co-owner of Vinyl Addict Records, 503 E. Grand River Ave., said some so-called “political” bands like Rage Against the Machine aren’t quite what they seem.
“I don’t believe Rage actually practices what they sing about, but they do help get the popularity and idea out there instead of keeping it just in the underground counterculture,” he said.
Krueger once attended a demonstration in Philadelphia where he witnessed something that confused him.
“I saw Zack De La Rocha (former vocalist of Rage Against the Machine) and he wasn’t about to get involved in the hard-core-stuff going on like fighting the police line,” he said. “He was more of a bystander watching by the sidewalk.
“Even worse, I was in Philadelphia a different time when Johnny Rotten (of the Sex Pistols) was down there running around in his expensive punk rock-looking clothes with a whole TV crew making an ass of himself,” he said. “He was trying to pretend he was really down with the movement.”
Krueger is a member of an anarchist collective called “Brighter Days.” His store features an infoshop under the same name, which specializes in radical books, noncorporate newspapers, revolutionary pamphlets and underground zines.
The literature available covers broad topics such as feminism, biotechnology, the anti-globalization movement, veganism and abortion.
The Brighter Days Collective travels all over the world for various rallies and demonstrations.
Darren Middleton, guitarist of Australian band Powderfinger, said for an artist to relay political themes in his music, he has to really believe in what he’s preaching.
“It’s hard because you really have to believe in something to get behind it because you have an influence on people,” he said. “Some bands do it with such conviction and really sound like they know what’s going on.
“It’s kind of dangerous, though, to open your mouth. You should have a real good idea of what you’re going to say.”
Krueger also said it is dangerous for artists to attempt to promote themselves as a politically active band.
“A lot of people don’t necessarily like politics in music,” he said. “Most people just like to listen to music that makes them happy and a lot of people don’t like it for that reason.
“It just shows how much (music) really works and has an effect on people.”
Other people, like Alison Byrne Fields, believe the reason most effective political groups don’t get positive exposure on radio airwaves is because people shy away from controversy nowadays.
Fields is the creative director and chief strategist of the U.S.-based nonpartisan group Rock The Vote!
“There is a lot of really great positive political hip-hop that doesn’t get the same kind of airplay as something more commercial,” she said.
Fields said if some artists attempted to suddenly be political, they wouldn’t be taken seriously.
“If you look at the music scene 10 years ago when we first started, compared to what it looks like now, the artists who are dominating radio and MTV are not political,” she said. “Everyone now doesn’t want to offend anyone and is afraid of sounding bland.
“You’re not going to look at the Backstreet Boys differently if they sang about a political insight - they would not be taken seriously.”
Inge Johansson, of political rockers The (International) Noise Conspiracy, acknowledges there is no way for his band to escape the political punk rock band label, but at the same time its aim isn’t to push beliefs on its audience.
“We just want to inspire people in the same way we were inspired by bands like the Dead Kennedys or Bad Religion when we grew up,” Johansson said. “We must have made a point somewhere because we’ve been doing it 15 years.”
And Abby Travis, a musician who has performed with high-profile acts like Beck and industrial rockers KMFDM, said she tries to be a little more private about her beliefs in her music.
“There are not a lot of bands who can pull it off,” she said. “The Minutemen and Dylan were a couple of outfits who were able to do it without sounding pretentious.”
Travis said it’s good to encourage the public to get involved in the political process through such organizations as Rock For Choice and Rock The Vote!
She said those organizations bring cases to the eyes of a lot of kids who wouldn’t know anything about certain situations otherwise.
“Hopefully people will then do their own investigative work to figure out what the reality is,” Travis said.
Johansson couldn’t believe his band’s latest politically-drenched album, “Survival Sickness,” could ring up the controversy it did last year.
“In Europe, people wrote about us for three or four days straight about our politics,” he said. “They would say, ‘I like the music, but I don’t agree with the politics.’
“Our concerts are all about amplifiers and political manifesto; We have slogans on our amplifiers and talk politics between songs, so if you buy the record you’ll hear that we include opinions we feel are important.”
But Fields said artists don’t have that much of an effect on younger audiences who listen to a certain band’s work more for the music rather than the messages and beliefs included within.
“They make adults nervous,” she said. “They’re taking chances and I’d like to see what happens with Rage without Zack as part of the band. They certainly seem to be taking more chances than most groups out there right now.”
But Middleton said while it’s okay for a band to have an opinion, he’s not quite sure if every group should attempt to be the next anarchist band of the millennium.
“Not every band should have free rein and be able to say this and that about this and that,” he said. “It ends up causing a lot of confusion among musicians who simply aren’t smart when it comes to that, myself included.”
Nonetheless, Krueger believes the youth of America are the most receptive people to the messages in political-based artists.
“I think (this is true) especially in the so-called counterculture politics that are put forth by artists and are really picked up on by kids,” he said.
“Even if they don’t try to go out and change the world that night, when they listen to the record it gets them thinking about it and really helps.”
Krueger also views Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys as a very important figure in the counterculture of America.
“He’s one a lot of people look at and try to say he sold out and try to compare him to Zack (De La Rocha). But I have to disagree with that,” he said.
“He’s using his popularity in a good way instead of using politics to sell records. I think people who don’t like him are missing the point.
“He has a lot of spoken word albums that really say something.”
Johansson said it’s pretty surprising that before his band even toured the U.S., its anti-capitalist message sold 20,000 copies in America.
“We don’t want to push things on people or tell them how to think,” he said. “But I do believe music can change the world and change the degree of people’s thoughts.”
