Insurgent Summer

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[Week 4] Letters of Insurgents Placeholder

Posted in Insurgent Summer on July 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Hello Insurgents,

I’m on vacation this week and have yet to finalize my post. But I fully intend to get it here shortly. Thanks

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 3] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Fredy Perlman, Insurgent Summer, Politicians, Record Labels on June 25, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: CHUMBAWAMBA-Anarchy (1994).

Long before Chumbawamba were Tubthumping up the charts, they were a bunch of squatting anarchists. In fact their history as a collective is fascinating in and of itself (they had even started a record label called Agit-Prop).

This album was their sixth, and the cover was not the only controversial thing about it. It opens with the supremely catchy “Give the Anarchist a Cigarette” which features the delightfully sing a long: “Nothing ever burns down by itself/ Ever fire needs a little bit of help.”

From this disc on (their previous albums were a mish mash of samples and dance beats) they set about writing catchy electronic rock songs. Simple beats that you could dance to, but with subversive lyrics up the wazoo. They tackled Homophobia: “homophobia the worst disease you can’t love who you want to love in times like these.” It’s an a capella track with an arr. trad. melody and (like “Tubthumping”) it was also set in a pub: “In the pubs and clubs and burger bars, breeding pens for pigs Alcohol, testosterone, and ignorance and fists.”

I’ve enjoyed this disc for as long as I’ve had it. It’s a catchy mix of different styles with a surprisingly strong sounding multi-voiced chorus. (For all of Chumbawamba’s ups and downs, their harmonies have always been spot on).

The disc also features a number of 30 second snippets of TV (one is called “D’oh”) and commercials. Songs also reference The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as well as local politics and general awareness: “open your eyes, time to wake up, enough is enough is enough is enough” (from the song “Enough is Enough,” which is decidedly not a cover of the disco hit).

Because I have the sense of humor of a five-year old, I have always loved the lyrics of the wholly danceable “Mouthful of Shit” “Can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit, do something about it. ” Also like “Tubthumping,” it features a solo female vocal coming out of the din, delicately singing, “You think you’re Gods gift, you’re a liar. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.” It’s fun to sing along to, just be mindful of where you are when yo do it!

[READ: Week of June 25, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Third Letters]

The hardest thing about writing up posts about this book is trying to limit my quotes! There are so many good ones, and ones that so encapsulate what I want to say that it just seems easier to use his words. So, Insurgent Summer readers, I apologize for all of the blocks. Fredy writes too well not to share it.

And so begins the third letters: (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 2] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Big Books, Communists, Corporate skewering, Death, Dystopia, Epistolary Novel, Fredy Perlman, Green Day, Insurgent Summer, Military, Politicians, The Clash, Unreliable narrator, Violence, Western on June 18, 2010| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: GREEN DAY-21st Century Breakdown (2009).

Like most people who like Green Day, I’ve been a fan since Dookie. They were incredibly poppy (although they wrote great punk riffs) and they sang about weird, kind of subversive things. And they got huge really fast. Of course since then they have become one of the most commercially successful bands in America (including having their song picked for the ending scene of the Seinfeld montage–jeez).

And yet….

And yet, American Idiot, their previous album was one of the most anti-establishment records of the last twenty years. (True it’s not hard to be Anti-Bush if you’re a punk band, but wow.) And yet, it was a concept album and even a rock opera of sorts. And it still sold millions.

And now American Idiot has been made into a freaking Broadway Musical. And yet, how many Broadway shows (or top twenty albums for that matter) have lyrics like “The insurgency will rise when the blood’s been sacrificed. Don’t be blinded by the lies in your eyes”

And so Green Day confounds me. And yet, if I were younger and cared more about “keeping it real” I think they’d confuse me even more because although musically they have sold out (if you want to call it that), lyrically Billie Joe is still pretty true to his punk roots. And, of course, even the punkest bands seem to go commercial eventually (Combat Rock anyone?)

Of all the Green Day CD’s I think I like this least. And yet I really applaud them for writing an album that so easily translates to Broadway (not an easy feat in itself) (this disc would make better Broadway than American Idiot). I think I dislike this disc not because it’s so unpunk, but because I think musically it’s really obvious (and although I like musicals, I prefer classic musicals to contemporary ones). And yet, most of Green Day’s music is pretty obvious. I guess I prefer my obvious music to have a harder egde.

And yet Act III is full of some really great aggressive punk songs: “Horseshoes and Handgrenades” is just fantastic. And in Act II, “Peacemaker has a great construction, all spaghetti Western and whatnot. And in the first act, the title song has multiple parts that all work well together. It’s a pretty sophisticated song. And who can fault Billie Joe for expanding his songwriting skills? Like the Tin Pan Alleyesque opening of “¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl).”

In interviews, Billie Joe comes across as a maturing artist who is influenced by more diverse styles of music. I always wonder what the other two guys think. Should your name still be Tre Cool if you’re no longer writing songs about getting high and masturbating?

And yet…and yet…ad astra.

[READ: Week of June 18, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Second Letters]

There’s been a lot of discussion over at Insurgent Summer (and here) about the first week’s reading. Very exciting! And with so much revealed and so many accusations flying this week, no doubt more will continue.

Many people have been wondering exactly what Yarostan could have meant in first letter when he said he barely remembered Sophia. When he replies in this letter, he claims that “I now remember you as if I had been with you only yesterday” (29). There are two ways to take this: first, as a positive; however, it can also be read as the way I take it: Oh, RIGHT, you’re THAT person, still. And this is pretty well confirmed by the second paragraph: “I admit that I once shared the illusion your letter celebrates” (29). (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 1] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Epistolary Novel, Foreign Books, Fredy Perlman, Insurgent Summer, Prison, Stereolab, Violence on June 11, 2010| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements (1993).

Stereolab are a bizarre band. They make bubbly electronic music, with all sorts of bleeps and whirls and buzzes. They even describe their music as space age pop. Their album cover art is overexposed or simply silk screened. (This is a hi-fi needle getting dropped on an LP). The back cover looks like it’s a hi-fi test record.

This disc is a bit less electronic than future releases. It’s more guitar drone (appropriate circa 1991, frankly). When the songs start, Latetia Sadler’s voice is angelic and beautiful. Delicate and sweet. And you sort of realize that you don’t quite understand what she’s singing. Because the song is in French! No kidding.

And then you get to “Jenny Ondioline.” It’s 18 minutes of droning guitars and noises. It has several parts (the song actually stops at one point and at another it plays a sample from “Channel Recognition Phasing and Balance.” And if you listen carefully to the lyric, you’ll hear:

I don’t care if the fascists have to win
I don’t care democracy’s being fucked
I don’t care socialism’s full of sin
The immutable system is so corrupt
What is exciting is the triumph as the new nation.

A little later on the disc, on “Crest,” there’s more subversive songwriting.

If there’s been a way to build it
There’ll be a way to destroy it
Things are not all that out of control.

This is all done by those sweet, yet alien-sounding vocals. When she’s not singing in French, Sadler sings in a fascinatingly broken English, emPHAsizing the wrong sylLABes.

Although I think my favorite moment comes in “Golden Ball” when the CD skips like a vinyl record. It’s surreal. Electropop and Marxism: perfect together.

[READ: Week of June 11, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [First Letters]

And so begins Insurgent Summer.

This is the first week of my second Summer Reading Book series. I’d never heard of this book before getting the invitation to read. But when the book was described as 800+ pages of letters between insurgents, well, how could I pass that up?

And that is indeed what you get here: Yarostan (Vochek) has not spoken to Sophia (Nachalo) in twenty years. And he writes to her to her because she had written to him twelve years earlier (when he was in prison). He writes back to bring her up to date on his life and to find out what’s going on with her. (more…)

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