Mixing Pop and Politics (13)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Haven't done one of these for a while.

Taking the wee one to the Doctors' last night for his flu shot meant that I missed Wayne Price's meeting on his new book, Anarchism & Socialism: Reformism or Revolution?, at Bluestockings bookstore but, just this minute looking at the website for NEFAC, I couldn't help but notice that I've seen that image of the bloke with the black flag before.

Looks like someone in the NEFAC has a penchant for early eighties leftfield electro-pop. If I'm not mistaken that image is Fad Gadget's Under The Flag album cover. I wonder if it was Frank Tovey's 1989 album, 'Tyranny And The Hired Hand', that swung it for the anarcho-webmaster?

Whatever the case; excellent taste in music. Have a T shirt.

Mixing Pop and Politics (12)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Blogger's dilemma.

Which name will generate the more random google hits: Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus? And what happens if I throw in Billy Ray Cyrus and Disney's High School musical for good measure? (Nothing, except the fact that it renders this post as something that has just jumped a hundred yards past the shark.)

Back to the matter at hand. The obscure mixing pop and politics factoid of the day is that Miley Cyrus's paternal grandfather, Ron Cyrus, was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Kentucky AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO? The American version of the TUC.

Granted the factoid is not as obscure or hipsterish as the previous disclosure on the blog about Beck and the ILGWU, but that's only because Miley isn't as obscure as Beck.

Mixing Pop and Politics (11)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Better known as the tall gormless looking one in such pop bands as Altered Images, Hipsway and Texas, Johnny McElhone claim to mixing pop and politics fame is that both his parents were once Labour MPs, both representing parliamentary constituencies in the city of Glasgow.

Johnny's dad, Frank McElhone, was a member of Parliament from 1969 to 1982 when, upon his death, Johnny's mum, Helen McElhone, succeeded her late husband as the MP for the Glasgow, Queens Park constituency.

The picture of Johnny that accompanies the post dates from the early to mid eighties. If you do a quick google image search of Altered Images and/or Hipsway from this period, you'll note that Johnny avoids eye contact in nearly every photograph that you stumble across.

Please be reassured that this isn't rock star arrogance on Johnny's part, or even an undiagnosed case of asperger's syndrome. Johnny deliberately avoided eye contact in his everyday life during this period in the eighties to ensure that no one could look him in the eye and ask him to join the Red Wedge tour.

Turns out Johnny wasn't so gormless, after all.

Mixing Pop and Politics (10)

Quick one.

NM over at Castles in Space music blog has just posted 'Kingdom', the wonderful 1993 single by Ultramarine, which featured Robert Wyatt on lead vocals.

Without a shadow of a doubt, it stands up as one of my favourite political pop songs from the the last twenty years and, of course, it took pride of place on the 'The Secret Melody of the Class Struggle' mixed cd that we took down to Glastonbury in 2003 to sell on the SPGB stall that year.

NM already provides the background to the recording over at his blog, so I don't even get the opportunity to use the word 'plaintive' when describing Robert Wyatt's voice because he already beat me to the publishing button. However he's on safer ground with his mention of "folktronica". What the hell is that? Oh, that's "folktronica". OK, I'll have some Beta Band, Beth Orton, Goldfrapp and The High Llamas. The rest can kindly leave the post. The Dance Village is that way.

NM mentions in passing that the lyric was adapted by Wyatt from a "Nineteenth Century protest song", but the underreporting is perhaps doing the original a slight disservice. The lyric was adapted from Ernest Jones's poem, 'The Song of the Lower Classes', which dates from 1852.

Originally from a highly privileged background, Jones - who was on the left wing of the Chartist Movement at its height - was as well known as a poet and a writer as he was an orator and Chartist leader. The strange old days when radical politicians also provided their audiences with popular music and poetry, as opposed to nowadays when whoever's on the front cover of the current issue of the Rolling Stone tries to give us their half-baked politics tucked neatly inside their newly released box set.

If you want more background on Jones, this essay by (the late) Edmund and Ruth Frow of the Working Class Movement Library fills in a lot of the detail.

In the meantime, cut and posted below is Jones's original poem. Be sure to have a read of it whilst listening to Ultramarine and Robert Wyatt's late twentieth century re-interpretation:

Song of the Lower Classes

We plow and sow, we're so very, very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay;
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know, we're so very, very low,
'Tis down at the landlord's feet;
We're not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.

Down, down we go, we're so very, very low,
To the hell of the deep-sunk mines;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow,
When the crown of the despot shines;
And when'er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay:
We're far too low to vote the tax
But not too low to pay.

We're low, we're low -- we're very, very low --
And yet from our fingers glide
The silken floss and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share;
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.

We're low, we're low, we're very, very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low, we're low -- mere rabble, we know --
We're only the rank and the file;
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.

Notes to the People,  1852

Mixing Pop and Politics (9)

What with his usual attire and the concerts for the troops, I never pegged Kid Rock as a Direct Action Anarchist type, but he seems to be getting a bit spikey late in life if these quotes from the BBC website are anything to go by:

"And I go: 'Wait a second, you've been stealing from the artists for years. Now you want me to stand up for you?'

"I was telling kids - download it illegally, I don't care. I want you to hear my music so I can play live."

Asked whether he was worried about illegal downloading, he replied: "I don't agree with it. I think we should level the playing field. I don't mind people stealing my music, that's fine. But I think they should steal everything.

"You know how much money the oil companies have? If you need some gas, just go fill your tank off and drive off, they're not going to miss it."

Oh wait up, wrote too soon: he's once of those type of anarchists:

But he said he did not implement that advice himself. "No, I don't steal things. I'm rich."

There must be a small scale laboratory in the 'burbs that produces a steady stream of this strain of anarchist.

Who's going to break the news to the old Subversion mob? I bet they were ready to bring the magazine out of retirement for a special one off 'Class War In The Moshpit' issue. They'll be gutted.

Mixing Pop and Politics (8)

Part of me is a wee bit wary in pointing people in the direction of Richard Dyer's 1979 article, 'In Defence of Disco'.

Not because I have any particular issue with Dyer's impassioned defence of disco, as outlined in his thesis, as:" a discussion of the arguments against disco in terms of its being ‘capitalist’ music and, second, an attempt to think through the- ambivalently, ambiguously, contradictorily- positive qualities of disco . . " but because the language and the jargon employed in the piece is so dripping in its time frame of radical academese that I wonder who the hell he was writing it for. (His right hand, perhaps?)

He was right enough to call out those on the left who were quick to dismiss disco for its supposed lack of "authenticity", but he's missing the main point on why disco was relevant, necessary and central to working class experience in the late seventies: it sounded fucking amazing. What's with the need to drape his article with sentences such as "The anarchy of capitalism throws up commodities that an oppressed group can take up and use to cobble together its own culture . . ." as a means to placate some cloth-eared member of the Militant Tendency* back in '79? It doesn't matter if it's 1979 or 2008: until a member of the SP/CWI can point me in the direction of a readable article by Peter Taaffe, I'm not prepared to hide away my Rose Royce mp3s.

I love my political music as much as the next member of Generation iPod but what's with the constant need to find political relevance in the music you plug into? There's this insinuation that it lacks weight if it's not explicitly saying something of major political import when we all know in our heart of hearts that Simple Minds went shite when Jim Kerr got his Amnesty International membership card through the door and that, more often than not, we'll fast forward through 'Ideology' to get to 'Levi Stubbs' Tears'.

OK, I know Dyer is one of the good guys and with his piece he was trying to get the archetypal left folk music merchant to pull his finger out of his ear as a prelude to pulling his head out of his arse, but what's with the final paragraph apologia of :

" . . . disco can't change the world or make the revolution. No art can do that, and it is pointless to expect it to. But partly by opening up experience, partly by changing definitions, art and disco can be used. To which one might risk adding the refrain, if it feels good, use it."

No need to be defensive about such things, comrade. If the missing piece in achieving the revolution was a decent mixed CD, then the SPGB would have secured its Parliamentary majority back in 2003. I think we've finally got past the point where it was once might have been claimed that the barricades don't go up until the soundtrack's in place. And that's a good thing. The left's split enough as it is without throwing in rows about the tracklisting into the mix.

But it does have to be mentioned in passing that the daft thing about the whole disco versus diabolical materialism argument that beset the bedsitter left in the late seventies is that Chic's Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers were shifting million of units whilst mixing the political commentary in with the reverberated vocals. Sadly, it went over the head of many:

"Here’s what’s great about “Good Times.” At the time that we wrote “Good Times,” the country was undergoing the worst economic depression that it’s seen like the since the Great Depression, which is what they used to say, and people were furious with us for writing a song “Good Times.” And we used to look at people, and we were befuddled, and we went, “What are you talking about?” And we realized that we had done our job so effectively that all of our lyrics were shrouded in double-entendre because there was no way that I was ever just gonna write a song about partying and dancing. I mean, I’m a Black Panther, what are you talking about? And so it was always about compromise." [Nile Rodgers quoted during Black History Month]

Much too subtle for your average Central Committee member, but I hold out hope that even the most seasoned cadre can catch on late in the day. In that munificent spirit, I'm happy to offer up a couple of mp3s for sampling purposes: The 12" version of Chic's classic - for those of you want your subversive disco tunes to last longer than the sycophantic applause at a George Galloway gig - and Beverley Knight's 'Made It Back (Good Times)', which dates from 1999 and is one of my favourite ever tracks for making use of a Chic sample:

Chic - 'Good Times' mp3

Beverley Knight - 'Made It Back (Good Times)' mp3

Hat tip to Bob-from-Brockley for pointing me in the direction of Richard Dyer's article.

* I put my hands up to a uncalled for sectarian attack on the Millies. I knew that AVPS loves his dance music. It's just not very good dance music. ;-)

Revisiting Pop and Politics

Belatedly realised that the post on the punk band Crisis doesn't really qualify as an "obscure factoid". Must try harder. Don't wish to be seen to be corrupting the purity of the series. (Bear with me, I'm babbling.)

Just thought it was a funny wee story and I also think that Crisis were an excellent band who deserve a wider audience. The four and a half (aye, Kara, you're the half) dedicated readers of this blog could make all the difference in them being discovered by a new generation. There's an excellent fan page for Crisis over here and be sure to check out a MySpace page dedicated to them.

Surprised that they don't get more plaudits from the usual suspects. There's only so many articles one can write about Crass or Zounds before it all gets a bit stale. Punks not dead: It's just a bit musty.

Mixing Pop and Politics (7)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

OK, I know that with this post I'm stretching the whole theme of 'mixing pop and politics' a tad but I do love this anecdote about the late seventies punk band, Crisis, that I spotted on the excellent 'Always Searching For Music' music blog:

"I can still remember when one of their protest songs nearly got their drummer Luke Rendall (also played with Theatre of Hate) into trouble. One of Crisis onstage favourites was a track called SPG, which for those of you who can remember was the abbreviated name for the Special Patrol Group (a controversial unit of the metropolitan police force of which in 1979 became notorious for the alleged murder of protester Blair Peach. In the inquiry the SPG officers were found to have weaponry such as Baseball bats, sledgehammers and crowbars - No SPG officer was convicted but an out of court payment was made to the Peach Family, the SPG were also cited as a major factor in the 1981 Brixton riots)

The SPG often hassled punks (and I guess anyone young), I can personally remember a number of occasions where they were over the top and over aggressive for no real reasons.So they had a reputation that you didn't muck around with.

Luke was wearing the Crisis SPG badge (see scan) when we were pulled up by the actual SPG. They looked at Luke's badge and said "Whats this then".

Luke replied "I'm in a band and it's a song about the SPG"

The SPG officer said "oh, what's it all about then"

Luke stood their silently thinking "Oh shit, the chorus is "smash, smash, smash the SPG (something like that I'm struggling to remember now)"

then replied "It's an instrumental"

Check out the links above if you want to hear some *samples* of Crisis. Excellent stuff. 'White Youth' is especially fine.

Mixing Pop and Politics (6)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Ralph Nader's running mate for the forthcoming US Presidential Election, Matt Gonzalez, was the bass player in the rock band, John Heartfield.

John who? Helmut Herzfelde.

Examples of Heartfield's work and further info about this world famous photomontagist and anti-fascist is available at this website.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Matt Gonzalez's band is the first recorded instance of someone who has played music in the past 25 years to not have made a music page for themselves and placed it on MySpace.

Mixing Pop and Politics (5)

Obscure Factoid of the day.

It's hard to believe but - to the best of my knowledge - Style Council's 1985 album, Our Favourite Shop, was . . . . sod it. I'm too embarrassed to admit it on the blog . . . though I've probably mentioned the shame of it on the blog before. Can't remember.

Might come clean about it tomorrow.

Mixing Pop and Politics (4)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Leading SWP apparatchik, Chris Nineham, was the one time drummer of Twee indie-popsters, The June Brides. (That's Chris on the ultra-left in the picture.)

Further Links:

MySpace page for The June Brides.

[To impress Kara.] An article from the Guardian from a few years back where Dave Eggers declares his long-term love for The June Brides.

Mixing Pop and Politics (3)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Beck's maternal Great Great Grandfather, Abraham Rosenberg, was the first president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Double hat tip to Kara for supplying the Beck pic and for the obscure factoid.

Mixing Pop and Politics (2)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Remember that episode from the second series of 'Extras' where Ricky Gervais visits a celebrity bar, and is humiliated by David Bowie? You know . . . that scene.

Turns out that in that scene where Bowie is playing the piano, he is in fact miming to an SPGBer playing the piano. I won't out the SPGB member concerned as he is not as politically active as he once was, but last century he was a Parliamentary candidate for the SPGB on two separate occasions and even stood for the Party in European Elections one time.

I defy you to find a more irrelevant and obscure bullshit political factoid on the net in the next month of Sundays.

Mixing Pop and Politics (1)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Mike Kidron's son, Adam Kidron, produced Orange Juice's debut album, 'You Can't Hide Your Love Forever'.