
Sup ICC Forums,
After everything is said and done for what I really enjoy is sharing music with my friends, my family--- even strangers. I am indeed a DJ down to my very soul and core. That being said I'd like to share some revolutionary music with you all. It's been a slow week for me, no work, so I figure why the hell not. In fact I'll try to continue give you guys a new track as often as I can.
Track: Nicolette - No Government
Year: 1992
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Saint-Germain-Des-Pr%C3%A9s-Caf%C3%A9-IV/release/451444
May not be able to get on tomorrow so I'll post while I can
Track: Thievery Corporation - Free
Year: 2011
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Thievery-Corporation-Culture-Of-Fear/master/348069
http://youtu.be/FyBCHAIaL2k
Track: Cypress Hill - Riot Starter
Year: 1998
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Cypress-Hill-IV/release/139478
http://youtu.be/FC_QYIWDs6U
The video to Beyoncé - Run the World (girls), in which the men are riot police, while the women hold red banners and raise their fists, could have been a scenario written by Chris Knight. It's not my cup of tea (the song nor the theory behind it), but perhaps that's better left for a seperate thread.
A contribution by one of our posters - jaycee. Holocaust Hypocrites: maybe the first left communist rap about the second world war and the Holocaust?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0wgerU2DIk
One of my favourites...
I thought I knew JC's canon but this is new to me. Excellent. Now: how about a link to 'world in chains'?
Yeah, that's dope!
Track: Mash - Style Is The Answer (Dominic Martin Remix)
Year: 2012
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Mash-Style-Is-The-Answer/release/3726216
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slIa1ZrOJkQ
and Goodnight!
Glad to hear you liked my tune. I haven't been doing much music lately but I'm hoping to get back into recording over the summer.
Anyway here is a link to my myspace( Ihaven't updated/done anything on there for longer than i can remember), unfortunately KT world in chains isn't on there at the moment. I'll change that over the next few days and put it up.
https://myspace.com/jayceemcee/music/songs
Jamal: do you make beats?
Jaycee---
I do indeed. I have mostly been producing House & Bass music lately. I can send you a link to my old Hip-Hop beats though they are from before I studied audio engineering in school. So a bit rough around the edges.
Love your ragga style flow though homie! Would be an honor to taylor-make you a beat!
Send me some ideas, links personal favorites at [email protected]
I'll send some back ((:
Cheers
cool man
i got an idea for a song thats like a 'sequal' to Commons 'I used to love her' about hip hop speaking to me from beyond the grave.
a old school 90's beat would be perfect for it.
that cool?
Track: Rage Against The Machine - Ashes In The Fall
Year: 1999
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Rage-Against-The-Machine-The-Battle-Of-Los-Angeles/release/395120
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFkwJ4OO2ac
Jaycee, send me an email dude!
Track: Dead Prez & Talib Kweli - Sharp Shooters
Year: 2000
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Lyricist-Lounge-2/master/51041
http://youtu.be/IR_UMkzq0eI
Track: M-1 (of Dead Prez) Ft. Styles P & Bazaar Royale - Comrades Call
Year: 2006
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/M-1-Early-Comrades-Call/release/1845655
http://youtu.be/UWnO0y0y4JQ
Track: Thievery Corporation - Vampires Ft. Seun Kuti
Year: 2008
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Thievery-Corporation-Radio-Retaliation/master/141071
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jquscqfs-XE
More social commentary than revolution but...
Skinnyman - Council Estate of Mind (2004)
http://youtu.be/gz49lnnzJak
I think it may have been used in anarchist Greg Hall's film The Plague (2006) but I haven't seen it, supposed to be good.
Akala - Find No Enemy
http://youtu.be/LjvUMr1-AAU
Man, how have I not heard these? Really great tunes. Conscious rappers like these would never get 200,000+ views in the states! That is a "trend" that unfortunately died with the 90's it seems.
Really digged both of those, especially Skinnyman.
@radicalchains: Have you seen La Haine? Probably on my top 5 films all time... also I'll let you know if I can find a copy of The Plague, sounds interesting!
Track: Fela Kuti & Africa 70 - Expensive Shit
Year: 1975
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Fela-Ransome-Kuti-Africa-70-Expensive-Shit/release/2996442
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmXvpuseXWU
This track has a great story behind it. If you don't know Fela, he is the father of "Afrobeat" music (as heard in the above track). The Nigerian James Brown (or instead rather James Brown was really the American Fela Kuti), he was much more polticial. The son of a prominent femininst and the first president of Nigeria's teachers union, Fela was famous for his larger than life personality which you hear in his music through his domineering saxophone solos and horn sections.
Anyways, basically Fela was a radical, a socialist with close ties to the Black Panther Party as well as the Black Power movement in general. During the early 1970's in Lagos, Fela created a huge, sprawling communal living space and compound. He called it the "Kalakuta Republic" (after a prison cell he spent time in) and declared his independence from the Nigerian government.
This lasted until 1978, when the Army attacked and burned the commune down to the ground, in the process killing Fela Kuti's own mother (it is said she was thrown from a window by a soldier).
Sometime before this happened there was an episode where the police/military raided the compound in search of what was rumored to be large quantities of marijuana. When they carried out the raid they found no herb and decided to plant a joint of pot on him and arrest him. At the moment when the authorities "pulled the joint" from "his pocket", Fela is said to have gobbled it up and swallowed it whole.
He was taken to prison where the police demanded his poop as evidence for an indictment. Legend has it the police and ruling authorities spent $50k to send out and test his excrement, thus the album title, Expensive Shit.
Glad you liked them, here's another...
Lowkey - Menace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhi5dBLIlYU
These are the more well known rappers/singers/musicians there is a plethora of 'underground' rappers in Britain that are hardly known of especially outside Britain.
Yeah, seen La Haine good film. I think you can buy Hall's films direct on DVD, they are very low budget.
I haven't been able to listen to any of these tunes yet. But a really great revolutionary tune is Bach's setting of "The Magnificat" specially the bit 'he has put down the mighty from their seat"; and another section " the rich he has sent empty away". Beethoven's "Eroica" is another revolutionary tune, specially the 1st. and the last movement, which is a witty pisstake of musical styles. Very funny. Sometimes its difficult to understand the words in rap.
One for the Oldies : say it loud I'm grey an' I'm proud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfJifsjzerI
'Ev'rybody crying justice!'
Just as long as there's business first .....'
{proof of Life from scratcher Nappa in the pipeline}
AS
Track: Trio Joubran - Shajan
Year: 2010
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Le-Trio-Joubran-Majâz/release/3796362
http://youtu.be/_HeEfhlf7LU
Band: Third World War
Track: M.I.5's Alive
Track: Working Class Man
Date: 1971
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1C3jCzJ914
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_HENrwhoBE
Of its time, but very angry and raw, and pretty good down and dirty blues/rock to boot!
Great choice Jemal, one of my favourite Fela Kuti tracks: you can't beat that Afro-Beat!
There's amusing posts all over the place - it must be post-paper production relief. "You can't beat that Afro-Beat" is funny.
As a kid in London people used to say "you can't nob" something meaning whatever the something was it couldn't be any better, ie you couldn't beat it. My uncle often used to say (back in the late 50's): "you can't nob the Luton Girls Choir"!
Ernie really digged that last one! Think I'll make it into my alarm clock (:
Here's some advice worth following...pardon the pun
Track: Fela Kuti - Follow Follow
Year: 1976
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Fela-Anikulapo-Kuti-Africa-70-Zombie/master/113995
http://youtu.be/xsToGea4MWI
Here's one from a son of the late great Fela
Track: Thievery Corporation - Vampires Ft. Seun Kuti
Album: Radio Retaliation
Year: 2008
Discgos: http://www.discogs.com/Thievery-Corporation-Radio-Retaliation/master/141071
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoS6Y5nfjOo
Anarchist film maker Greg Hall who I mentioned in an earlier post has been making availble his films on Vimeo for a week at a time.
You can watch SSDS: Same Shit Different Day (2010) for free if you are quick.
http://vimeo.com/76783164
geto boys - free - Da Good Da Bad & Da Ugly
http://youtu.be/YNhSlkp7ORw
Special request to all worker!
Johnny Ringo - Special Request
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4yex59GyD8
Track: Charles Bradley ft. The Menahan Street Gang - The World (Is Going Up In Flames)
Album: No Time For Dreaming
Year: 2011
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Charles-Bradley-Featuring-The-Sounds-Of-Menahan-S...
http://youtu.be/0bbgHTdSPJ4
i make music (noise) - it's fun to share it, but i don't have the right friends or talent to make tracks about what i seriously believe... it's more a joke.
https://soundcloud.com/timestretched_noise
i sometimes write "pamphlets" on my thinking about noise and despair / nihilsm, though i don't think about in a political sense. maybe if the poetry takes off...
ironically, noise has had a lively history of nazist symbolism. i have seen little to no communist sympathy though - a few concerned liberals not much else.
The Day The World Stopped Working - Jegsy Dodd & The Original Sinners
http://youtu.be/tTUS3DDg89o
This is a dubious addition, from an outfit laden with David Icke-esque conspiacy garbage BUT they have an interesting sound that is relatively original (see some of their other tracks). However, the main reason I am posting this is because the ICC World Revolution features in their music video! Very briefly, for about one second. At 2:32. Ever been in a music video before ICC?
http://youtu.be/6EzVVmke1Gk
It's a catchy name for a revolutionary publication! Cool!
Sorry if this is old news to people: I just saw the documentary on the British post-punk band Joy Division last weekend. Its a couple of years old now, I guess. Anyway, there is one scene where one of the band's songs is playing over a montage of street life in late 1970s Manchester. The camera is panning around at various images and then it stops at a newstand periodical display for a few seconds. On this stand is displayed a fat stack of WRs. You can even make out some of the article titles: There is one on the WR Congress, one on a hospital strike in Italy and one on human rights. I couldn't tell what issue number it was, but it looked to have a red cover.
Had comrades seen this before? Pretty cool, I thought--back to the time when people actually bought hardcopies of periodicals!
Is it online somewhere?
Hmm, not sure. I am so low tech, I actually rent videos from a store. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about the documentary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Division_%282007_film%29
It was a rather weird experience to see the WR issues in the film. It was as if WR was presented as a cultural artifact of this period--the ICC and WR were an expression, like Joy Division itself, of the post-industrial angst of working class youth in declining British cities of the 1970s. It was as if the politics articulated by such magazines were something frozen in time, appropriate to this period, but which had been surpassed by something else, just like the newstands themselves. (Yes, I got all of this from the ten seconds that the WR issue appears on screen)
Of course, one of the themes of the film was a kinda post-modern tale of rebirth, of the continuing ability of capitalism to make something new out the decay, as the dark post-punk sound of Joy Division died along with the suicide of its frontman--only to be reborn in the up tempo new wave sound of New Order--the band formed by the remaining members. This was presented as a corrolary it seemed to the death of the old industrial city in the Thatcher period and its rebirth as something else, something new and improved, and a heck of a lot prettier to look at, in the new post-industrial order.
In other words, look at how much of a total shithole Manchester was back then, but now it has all these spiffy new buildings, concert halls and sushi bars--so its OK now, Schumpeterian creative destruction and all that--and we have the Thatcherites and New Labour to thank for it all, I guess. This was rather dissapointing.....
http://watchdocumentary.org/watch/joy-division-video_16b6decf4.html
At 35:36?
It's not the best quality so difficult to read anything.
It's also on You Tube with Italian subtitles for anyone interested. They talk some right bollocks in these kinds of things.
By the way if you want to save a bit on your rental costs, apart from checking You Tube for films and documentaries you can always try searching google "watch _ _ _ _ _" you will often find things you can stream (watch) directly off the net without having to download anything. But, quality can be poor.
Thanks radical!
Bob Dylan - Masters of War (Ed Sheeran Cover)
And Ed. does. I heard the original at 13 just as the bigger world of second school began, LBJ got his Viet Nam war and I got my second guitar.
Suddenly: 'Johnny Angel, how I want him/ he's got something that I can't resist/ but he doesn't even know that I - I - I exist ' was relativised to the candy floss it was by words not one of which was wasted and a voice which dared to challenge some mighty power that I did not yet comprehend. New delivery: no 'nostalgia' factor ergo ears more open.
Sorry to introduce real music onto this fascinating thread but a fairly new recording of some piano music by Chopin, played by the amazing Benjamin Grosvenor, is earth shattering.
For years I've regarded Chopin as "candy floss" all brilliant technique, and sound and fury signifying bugger all, but in Grosvenor's youthful hands he becomes a revolutionary thinker as well. Is Grosvenor a revolutionary and thus thinking pianist himself? I think so. The "product" of a semi-detached in Clacton-on-Sea his technical skills have swept all other pianists off the map. He has restored "dance" to the music of Bach. Long needed this. He has found thought and feeling beneath Chopins's firework displays. And he's only 22 and all over you tube - though I don't know if that means anything or not.
Ed Sheerans not bad though.
What do you mean by real music Fred? I just find it all really, really boring. Am I a pleb?
Hi radical. Do you mean you find what's called "classical" music really really boring, because, if you do, then I'm sorry because not all of it is boring it just isn't easy to listen too on the first few attempts. Unlike "pop" which is easy to become familiar with on only a few listenings but can quickly become well, over familiar and...boring.
I have recently had to listen to Grosvenor's disc of mainly Chopin pieces (which I was prejudiced against to begin with, because of previously failed attempts to "get through" to the happy stage of listening to Chopin) four times before I began to see, understand, appreciate, the intricate beauties buried inside all the sound, which can initially attack you as just "noise". I was helped here by Grosvenor's interpretation of the music, because he seemed to find a lot of "depth" in it under all the flamboyancy that most concert pianists seem to think is all that Chopin's all about. (Was that a product of the counter revolution?) in fact I think Grosvenor has unearthed the (bourgeois) revolutionary side of Chopin's creativity and unleashed it on an unsuspecting audience used to flamboyant fireworks alone. Similarly, on another disc called "Dances" Grosvenor's first track is a partita by Bach (!) in which he finds all the dance elements contained therein and changes instantly the nature of a piece of music usually performed with academic greyness and a dreary severity, from an intellectual exercise back to a contrapuntal dance.
The problem with "classical" music is that it definitely does not tend to reveal its pleasurable side - of which there are many different varieties - until after multiple listenings. But after you achieve break through on one piece - for me this was Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony which I struggled with for weeks - then a door has been opened onto a whole new sparkling universe of sound.
But isn't the same true of Marx? You are unlikely to get through to his meanings on one reading alone, or even a number. You have to persevere. That "the emancipation of the working class is the task of the class itself" doesn't automatically yield up its intricate meaning on a first glance. It requires a number of "visits". A number of hearings. The same is true of "classic" novels. They are not easy at first, but get easier to appreciate with practice. It takes an effort. But sometimes the effort is worth it. The revolution will take an effort too.
Some food is fresher and better prepared than other food. Some beer, some wine, is better than other beers and wine. All I meant by "real music" in contrasting Chopin and Grosvenor with Ed Sheeran and Bob Dylan is a difference in purpose and intent.
Happy listening radical. You're not a pleb.
Why do people like the music they do? Probably because it moves something in them in a way they can appreciate.
To be honest I'm about as familiar with Sheeran as I am with Grosnevor--- neither one of them very much. Grosnevor didn't do much for me but that's just me. Didn't pull any strings really. I have a hard time accepting a piece of music as "dance music" without prominent percussion leading it through. Not to say Grosnevor is without rhythm, the opposite actually. A single piano just didn't do anything for me. And by the way I did like the Beethoven symphony.
If we're solely focused on dynamism, Jazz easily rivals Classical music. I prefer Jazz and have explored it significantly more than Classical. Jazz also has the improvisation element. But one thing I've learned about genres is there is a piece of music in each one which you'll absolutely love, even if you don't know it yet. There's no question though that due to what we in "the biz" call the "loudness wars", pop music has become exponentially less dynamic over the past 30 years.
But musical preference is like sexual preference. Who knows exactly when, why and how our particular fetishes develop, but they do. Maybe we're "just born that way". Or maybe society is as musically repressed as it is sexually. Hard to know at this point.
All this leaves me wondering how it relates to the notion of culture in capitalism.
Four Tet - 128 Harps
Burial - Near Dark
Chris Thomas King - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
Demon Fuzz - Another Country
When Jamal writes:
'If we're solely focused on dynamism, Jazz easily rivals Classical music. I prefer Jazz and have explored it significantly more than Classical. Jazz also has the improvisation element. But one thing I've learned about genres is there is a piece of music in each one which you'll absolutely love, even if you don't know it yet. There's no question though that due to what we in "the biz" call the "loudness wars", pop music has become exponentially less dynamic over the past 30 years.'
It highlights some very good points. Regarding Jazz: well .. how long have you got?
Duke Ellington wrote a set of suites pertaining to Shakespeare's plays and was predictably asked by an interviewer: ' So Mr Ellington ... or may I call you Duke? .. would you say these suites are 'Classical' or 'Jazz'?
The Duke replied: ' I believe there are only two types of music: good music ... and the other kind.' How gentlemanly: 'the other kind': more of an aristocrat than many English kings (King John springs to mind)
So with regard to genres I agree with Jamal (and The Duke) A certain cadence, modal line, rhythm, or even tempo appeals across genres. It resonates regardless of the 'file under hypno-gunge' factor.
There are perhaps corollaries from the point of view of the performer/composer also: constants that only change cosmetically as it were- frustration being one.
Beethoven lived in 'Soundland' but oy vey he had to make a living. For which purpose he accepted a commision to compose a piece for King Ludwig (no relation) of Bavaria's daughter on the event of her sixteenth birthday. During this particular gig the audience of courtiers professed enormous emotional response by drawing hankies from their ruffled sleeves and weeping. At the end Ludwig (composer) slammed the piano lid down and cried 'You understand nothing you fools!' . It is quite probable that he then trashed his dressing room - which occasionally he was wont to do - with possibly more justifiable reason than the band members of Aerosmith.
AS
Demon Fuzz - Another Country
"If I could lose,
All my troubles,
By running away, no, no,
I wouldn't stay..."
J. Dilla - Fuck the Police
Interesting that even NWA's classic anti-police revenge fantasy is presented in the form of a legal trial. Brings to mind Foucault's critique of the Maoists--"Revolutionary tribunals are still tribunals."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-TTWgiYL4
Not ashamed to admit I've been listening to both of these songs a lot today. Here's another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyEOXqlzksU
In the vein of anti-police songs, I think this probably takes the biscuit for its advocacy of visceral violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=517WVJNdO5g
Although it's worthy of interest if only because it's "Ice-T does punk rock"!
For fans of the anarchist slogan "ACAB", there's always this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFPZPlHWtII
I was just in the process of asking what it stood for, but then decided to view the video, and a few seconds of the clip were enough to remind me of what it stood for.
All coppers are bastards?
Typical anarchist personalisation.
I couldn't really understand any of the lyrics, but it seems like they want to fight the cops in the streets. That'll surely not work.
Understandable lyrics are surely a bourgeois pretension. Any singer with actual talent is able to scream or grunt in such a way as to make even the simplest lyrics utterly unintelligible. I find the Gallows track a little disappointing because, despite the vocalists best efforts, it's still identifiable as English. Mostly.
On a more serious note, I think the track is a reflection on the G20 protests in Toronto, June 2010 which resulted in the largest mass arrest ever in Canada and also notable for the case of Adam Nobody, who was beaten by over a dozen officers and then arrested ... for assaulting the police!
Not that the Black Block distinguished themselves greatly either, taking the opportunity to trash the city centre and undoubtedly providing a superficial justification for the police "response".
The Toronto police were so nice during Occupy--they even allowed porta-potties to be brought into the park. Of course, that may have had something to do with not wanting people to actually leave the park.
Dead Prez - You'll Find A Way
The Budos Band - Origin of Man
The Budos Band - Nature's Wrath
The Roots - I Will Not Apologize Ft. Talib Kweli, et al
Nas - It Ain't Hard to Tell
Mulatu Astatqe - Asmarina
Portishead - Over (Live 1997 Roseland NYC)
DMZ - Anti-War Dub
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