Three separate concerts looking to speak volumes about the times
This weekend, some of the best new voices in protest music will be gathered in Chicago, occupying several events (official and otherwise) to sing their dissent in the shadow of the ballyhooed NATO summit. Speaking through hard rock, klezmer, Afrobeat, banda, Norteno, marching bands, jazz, country and, yes, traditional folk, these protest singers seek to both venerate and explode the Woody Guthrie-bob Dylan, lone-wolf-with-an-acousticguitar template of musical protest.
“No successful protest movement in our nation’s history has existed without a great soundtrack,” says Tom Morello, 47, guitarist from alt-rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, now solo as a socially conscious folk singer under the name The Nightwatchman. “The music behind the Civil Rights era, the anti-vietnam protests — some of those artists were also chart-toppers. These are different times. Occupy has a great soundtrack, but it’s being played around the campfire and on the city hall steps right now. When I played Zuccotti Park last fall, I was just one of six artists that day. I played [other Occupy events] in Vancouver, in Bristol, in London. The nights were filled with song.”
In 2011, Morello released a one-two punch with the albums “Union Town,” featuring pro-labor rallying cries old (“Solidarity Forever,” “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night,” “Which Side Are You On?”) and new (“Union Song,” “A Wall Against the Wind,” the title track), and “World Wide Rebel Songs,” featuring fierce, original battle cries about class, equality and justice from a distinctly working-person’s point of view (“Save the Hammer for the Man,” “The Dogs of Tijuana,” “It Begins Tonight”). The full-length albums were released within two months of each other — the former based on Morello’s contributions to the protests against the anti-union bill delivered by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the latter inspired by many of the same grievances that fueled the Occupy demonstrations. “World Wide Rebel Songs” just spawned a new documentary, “World Wide Rebel Tour,” released in 42 different versions targeting that many countries and native languages.
As a result, Morello has been adopted as something of a pied piper by Occupy groups. In March, Occupy Austin participants marched (actually, danced) across the Texas capital’s downtown and gathered outside Morello’s official showcase at the South by Southwest music conference. Morello quickly wrapped his indoor performance, for conference attendees only, and took his guitar into the street. Cops pulled the plug on his side- walk PA, but Morello kept going, strumming his acoustic guitar and singing “This Land Is Your Land” and speaking to the crowd via the “human microphone.”
“I love it when they pull the plug,” Morello says. “I’m always ready for that. You want the crowd to get bigger and rowdier? Pull the plug.”
On May 1, Morello organized and lead a “guitarmy,” a legion of several hundred strummers, which marched through New York City streets and, in a sense, declared the opening of protest season.
“For the Occupy movement, this winter was our Valley Forge,” Morello says. “We’ve gone through spring training, we’re entering the election cycle and the upcoming recall vote in Wisconsin, there’s a push-back against austerity in Europe — it’s going to be a great summer for people power.”
Hey, Woody Guthrie
Morello’s next salvo will be in Chicago, where this weekend he plans to participate in numerous events scheduled around the NATO summit, including the May 19 Woody Guthrie tribute concert.
This July would have been Guthrie’s 100th birthday, and the year is filled with centennial conferences, concerts and other events around the nation paying tribute to the folk icon ( Chicago’s concert this weekend is not an official centennial show (that comes next month, see sidebar); it is produced by portoluz, born out of the ashes of Hot House, and is part of their yearlong series of events about labor, “WPA 2.0: A Brand New Deal.”
“We created this series when we started talking about how it felt important to look at events in light of the question of the economy — in a post-2008, pre-99 percent