When The Ordinary Boys sang about “Over the counter culture” in 2000, I don’t believe that they were referring to the emerging culture of self-medicating patients, thanks to pharmacies selling drugs without prescription. Nor do I believe that they were seriously trying “to be so different” with any sort of distinctive message: they were trying to launch a music career which, for a while, they managed well enough.
They also managed to reinsert the term “counter-culture” in to the mouths of teenyboppers and onto the airwaves of youth culture, where its absence had not been filled, and still isn’t, by the profusion of musicians trying to be “radical”. Music being radical politically is hardly a new idea, of course. In the 1930s Woody Guthrie carried a guitar with “This Machine Kills Fascists” inscribed on it and punk was born in the 70s as the first mass expression in fashion and music of social discontent and frustration. Yet artists with a political message have lost their voice in the intervening years, and where it has become cool to idolise Pete Docherty and for celebrities to take crack, it has become un-cool to care about the world, its problems and its politics. Once decorated with rips, zips, safety pins and slogans, artists and celebrity figures have moved from the counterculture and into the mainstream and being ‘radical’ now means something different.
John McClure, the preaching Reverend of indie rock band “Reverend and The Makers”, is (somewhat dramatically) “in love with the idea of it being cool to care about the world”. Whilst his Yorkshire accent delivers sharp and cynical lyrics on modern day society, he uses his regular presence in newspapers and interviews to continually question governmental policies and the silence of other British celebrities on serious issues when, given the influence of our celebrity estate, they have the voices that the public will listen to. He cites lad culture, anti-intellectualism and brand image as reasons for their gagged throats – yet I doubt whether he is truthfully causing a stir in any greater way than by proving that his depth of opinion is greater than his actual music.
His newspaper complaints against other celebrities and his urges for radicalism are unlikely to manifest in any real governmental questioning or cultural rebellion, and citing the celebrity endorsement of Barack Obama’s campaign as proof of their power is hardly ground-breaking when swinging a leg up onto the political bandwagon is as fashionable there as rehab and over-sized sunglasses. I do genuinely believe it to be a shame that more artists don’t express solid political affiliation in our country, but then again when our ‘celebrities’ include Kerry Katona and the ‘stars’ of Big Brother I don’t feel the loss quite so tragically. And indeed when some artists do make a show in their shows of “trying to be so different” (Preston’s words, not mine), their performances smack of being exactly that: performances, not sincerely felt political protests.
Entering handcuffed and in orange jumpsuits on to the stage at Reading this year, American rockers Rage Against the Machine (pictured above) screamed about Guantanamo and world leaders in between their swearwords, the noise being so great it was difficult to hear the words “recently reformed…first English show in eight years…”. Given that their rant against Tony Blair was over a year out of date and their abhorrence of Bush was hardly an original statement, they failed to provide the 70,000 synchronized moshers with anything seriously radical to headbang to.
Below the thud of the headbanging and McClure’s whines, some musicians’ notes ring out clear, to the tune of actually making a difference to instigate change in society. Can you ride a bike with no handlebars? The Flobots can. They can also show you how to do-si-do, how to scratch a record, and how to organise street teams across America to fight youth crime. Through their website “fightwithtools.com” the Denver sestet aim to prompt drastic social change in the regions visited by their street teams, with the ultimate goal of nationwide improvement. Their left-wing views are more accessible than extremist and they are currently focused on encouraging voters – naturally in favour of Obama – in the next US election, but simply because they are being drastically different from other musicians in actually having a social-improvement program they have become the radicals of an otherwise inert culture scene. One of their influences is Billy Bragg, the left-wing musician responsible for encouraging musicians to turn up the volume on their political voices by recording anti-BNP records and by becoming, like him, involved with schemes such as “Love Music Hate Racism”.
Set up in 2002 in response to the BNP’s election success and rising levels of racist crime, LMHR plays on from the success of the Rock Against Racism movement in the late 70s and 80s. They organise nationwide music events – club nights and outdoor festivals, small gigs and large concerts with big name acts with the specific goal of inspiring the crowd to become actively engaged in anti-racism and anti-fascism movements. Through LMHR, I found out the personal opinions of one their most ardent supporters and one of England’s most recognised female rappers, Miss Dynamite:
She got involved with LMHR to campaign against the “immoral and disgusting” BNP and to use “music, as one of the most powerful creative tools in life [to] take a stand”. She believes in freedom of speech – but only to an extent:
“people might not agree with what I’m saying but the difference is that I’m not saying I dislike someone because of the colour of their skin or their sexual preference. As a black woman I feel completely insulted that they [the BNP] are even allowed to exist.” The power that music holds means that it must be, she explains, “positive and expressive. There are lots of artists who’ve inspired me, the legends like Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. I feel that the music of their era had many artists who were saying something, without them being seen as “conscious” as such.
Music seemed to mean something different through that whole era – like within Soul, people were going through the civil rights movement and that was expressed so much in the music. Only recently I was listening to an old tape my Dad made, and I realised that all these songs I never thought much about before, listening to them now they’re really socially conscious – I’m like ‘oh my god – is that what they meant?’ – they’re talking about racism, they’re talking about civil rights.” Yet like McClure she feels that today’s musicians are failing to speak out in their music for certain issues and campaigns. “I can’t understand”, she exclaims, “how if you feel passionately about things why you don’t say that in your songs. For me, its part of life, its how I feel.”
So, on the decibel scale of political music, it seems that some voices sing out louder than others, and when the political chord is struck, the note is heard. Yet the Flobots and the LMHR artists are the ones whose tunes are what matters, what make a difference. They don’t sing for their voices to be praised, they sing to make people sit up and listen and make a change. Because of that, they have been shifted to the left: they are the radicals, they are the counterculture.
