Love and Rage Volume 1
Various artists
Love and Rage Records
REVIEW BY HANG THE DJ
This is the CD that came before Warnography, reviewed in Green Left Weekly #587. Like Warnography, Love and Rage Volume 1 is a compilation of political music in a lot of different styles — punk, techno, hip hop, reggae, metal and folk, to name but most of them.
Probably the biggest names on the CD are the No WTO Combo, otherwise known as Jello Biafra, Kim Thayil from Soundgarden and Krist Novoselic from Nirvana, playing "Let's Lynch the Landlord" live during the "Battle of Seattle" in 1999.
Melbourne goth/industrial luminary Dave Thrussell, otherwise known as Snog, contributes probably his best-known song "Corporate Slave" ("I'm just a hardworking corporate slave"), a song that is strangely reminiscent of my three years at the tax office's call centre, although with more danceable beats. "There is no America, there is no democracy." Well, the second one is true, but there seems if anything to be an excessive amount of America lately.
Mexican-American metal band Tazumal growl menacingly about something (the excessive amount of America in their native California, I think) whereas rapper Zearle and former Rage Against the Machine frontman Zac de la Rocha (appearing here in sampled form, and so not counted as the biggest name on the CD, pedantry fans) are crystal clear on "Prophets of Profit".
Local hip hop eccentrics Curse ov Dialect are apparently not fond of Nazi skinheads, and sample the vapid film Romper Stomper to prove it.
Right-wing shock jock Alan Jones makes a surprise appearance on Non-Bossy Posse's "Catalyst", perhaps most surprising to himself.
Skreech and David Rovics are both solo singer/songwriters who play acoustic guitars, but their style is very different — Skreech's "Death to the Government" is a kind of punky, early Billy Bragg-ish singalong. The "we" in David Rovics' kinder, gentler "We Are Everywhere" is lefties rather than bearded, acoustic-guitar bearing folk singers, although it'd be true either way. Or it referred to David Rovics himself, without whom no summit siege is complete.
This CD is not for anyone who only likes one kind of music, or even for anyone who thinks "all hip hop/metal/folk is crap" — but if you want to be pleasantly surprised by how many different ways people can say "capitalism bites", buy it.
[To buy a copy of the CD send $10 to Love and Rage Records, PO Box 1191, Richmond North VIC 3121. Please make cheques or money orders payable to "J. Hutchings".]
From Green Left Weekly, September 15, 2004.
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