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The Protest Issue 2008
| Under the Radar unleashes 2008’s Protest Issue, using the time-honored connection between politics and music to promote political dialogue and awareness. The Protest Issue features two alternating collectable covers: one with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, the other with Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, The Decembrists’ Colin Meloy, and Spoon’s Britt Daniel. Inside the issue, you’ll find in-depth interviews and photo shoots exploring the intersection of music and politics as artists tackle issues ranging from Darfur to the environment to the upcoming 2008 U.S. presidential election. This is a pivotal era in America’s history and never has the time to utilize musicians’ voices through the media been more apropos. As with Under the Radar’s 2004 Protest Issue, we have asked an eclectic array of artists to contribute to the 2008 issue. For the issue we have conducted photo shoots with musical artists holding protest signs of their own making that will be auctioned for charity (we provided the materials and the artists painted a message of their own choosing on the signs). Artists interviewed for one of the political articles and photographed with a protest sign include: British Sea Power, Jarvis Cocker, The Dears, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, Michael Franti, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, OK Go, Peter Bjorn and John’s Peter Morén, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Shout Out Louds, Spoon’s Britt Daniel, Stars, and Tomas Young (of the documentary Body of War). Artists just photographed with protest signs (but not interviewed) include: Akron/Family, Billy Bragg, Built to Spill, The Dresden Dolls, The Duke Spirit, Elbow, Fleet Foxes, The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, Foals, Sharon Jones, Talib Kweli, Les Savy Fav, Jamie Lidell, Lightspeed Champion, Metric, My Brightest Diamond, My Morning Jacket, Neon Neon, Okkervil River, Rilo Kiley’s Pierre de Reeder, Rogue Wave, Sons and Daughters, St. Vincent, and Supergrass. Artists just interviewed for one of the political articles (but not photographed) include: Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, Cadence Weapon, Justin Townes Earle, Extra Golden, Tim Fite, The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Emmanuel Jal, Damien Jurado, Seun Kuti, Moby, Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, and Caetano Veloso. Each protest sign has been autographed by the artists and will be auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to War Child International, www.warchild.us, a nonprofit that helps children in areas of conflict across the globe. The auction will go live on September 30th. The special Protest Issue section features these political articles: Body
of War: Veteran Tomas Young’s
Fight Against the War in Iraq “We need to show the human side of the cost of war. What’s not on the six o’clock news.” – Tomas Young Issues
Around the World: International
Musicians Speak Out “China is taking oil from Sudan and bringing in guns. The reason I protest the Olympics is to stand up to the world and say, ‘China is also responsible for genocide in Sudan.’” – Emmanuel Jal “All the industry has been outsourced to poorer countries where it doesn’t cost as much. In a way, the working class has become the consuming class, buying up needless shit to keep the system rolling along. I think that’s sad.” – Jarvis Cocker Musicians and Politics
in 2008:
Can It Work? It is probably no great surprise that most musicians (at least those within Under the Radar’s demographic) are Democratic-leaning, and of those who have pledged an allegiance this time around, most are supporting Barack Obama, save your high-profile endorsements of Hillary Clinton by Elton John and Elvis Costello and some vaguely defined support of John McCain from composer Burt Bacharach. Artists including R.E.M., Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and Superchunk have all voiced support for Obama in some form or fashion. Yet many artists came out in support for Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004, and little changed in the way of executive control. So as we venture down this well-trodden road once more, we must examine the issue of artist advocacy with an eye toward effectiveness. The issues at hand are of the utmost importance, but by what means can change be truly effected? What is the best way for an artist to use his or her voice? How can music spur debate or action? Or are people too cynical at this point to even care? This article tackles whether musicians and protest songs can really influence politics and political opinion. The article touches on those artists who out on the 2008 campaign trail actively supporting Barack Obama and also reflects on the 2004 Vote for Change Tour for John Kerry. The eleven-page article incorporates interviews with the following: Andy Bernstein of HeadCount (an organization that encourages young people to register to vote at concerts), Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, Justin Townes Earle (Steve Earle’s son), The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Damien Jurado, Moby, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, OK Go’s Damian Kulash, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Heather Smith of Rock the Vote, Spoon’s Britt Daniel, Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, and System of a Down’s Serj Tankian. The article is written by Frank Valish. “What we end up with is essentially a spokesperson. We’re voting for the fucking class president, but we’re not actually voting for the principal.” – Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock “I don’t think anyone out there is thinking, ‘I need to end the crisis in Darfur. I’ll start a rock band.’” – OK Go’s Damian Kulash “People should be cynical about the electoral process. All you have to do is look at its history. But I don’t believe people should be at all cynical about the possibility of creating real, substantive change.” – Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello “Naïve, idealistic people like me think that showing up and playing a concert and spouting a few political platitudes is somehow going to change things. And unfortunately, it doesn’t.” – Moby Protest
Q&As with Isaac Brock, Britt Daniel, and Colin Meloy “I’ve always watched other people use their ‘celebrity’ as a platform, and there’s two ways to look at that. Either you can see it as a viable way of shining a light on a certain issue or an agenda, by using that platform, or you can also see a disingenuousness about it, that potentially you’re just using it as an opportunity to show how aware you are.” – The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy “If you think about all the energy and the time that’s spent on covering elections, we could actually be talking about issues.” – Spoon’s Britt Daniel The
Pump Don’t Work, ’Cause the Vandals Took the Handles
Reclaiming
the Mic: Hip-Hop and Protest “Now you have a whole generation of kids who grow up wanting to be 50 Cent. I remember when there was a whole generation of kids growing up wanting to be Chuck D. That’s a different philosophy.” – Michael Franti “Music has as much power as a speech or a war chant. It can start wars and it can make peace.” – Chuck D Michael
Stipe: New Adventures in Activism
“You can see that [the TV news journalists are] just talking out of their asses because they get a fat paycheck out of it, or it strokes their ego to do so—possibly even, as devil’s advocate, supporting a position that they themselves don’t even hold.” – Michael Stipe Tights and the Good
Fight: Politics and Comic Books “Books like Watchmen and [The] Dark Knight [Returns] toyed with the big political issues of the day, but dressed them up as mainstream entertainment. We don’t get too uncomfortable when the lines are delivered by a man in a cape, but we do pay a little more attention.” – Mark Millar Top
10 Protest Songs of the 21st Century We
Sometimes Shall Overcome: Four Stories of
Imprisonment and Exile “We wanted to be part of the international wave of counterculture and, thus, respond more effectively to the violent oppression we suffered under a military dictatorship in Brazil.” – Caetano Veloso (The following photographers conducted protest sign photo shoots for The Protest Issue: Christophe Collette, Crackerfarm, Steven Dewall, Aubrey Edwards, Jim Newberry, Ron Newkirk, Sheri O’Neal, Wendy Lynch Redfern, Derrick Santini, Andy Willsher, and Debra Zeller. Steven Dewall also shot both covers of The Protest Issue.)
Elbow:
Weathering the Storm “There were certainly elements of helping me through the grieving process where this album was concerned, particularly the last song, ‘Friend of Ours.’ I wrote the beginning of the song the day after [my friend] Bryan [Glancy] died and I couldn’t finish it. I wrote the end almost a year to the day after he died. It offers a note of hope as all our songs do, even the darkest ones. It’s important to offer hope, especially in troubled times.” – Guy Garvey My
Brightest Diamond: Seeing the Sound “I think in pictures maybe more than in words.” – Shara Worden My Morning Jacket:
New Weird Soul “With some folk music—and maybe rock music, too—you can get into a real cerebral place, but you don’t necessarily want to physically move to it. You just want to sit in your bed and cry. But I’ve been trying to get into music that resonates emotionally but with an uplifting power that also makes me want to jump around the apartment.” – Jim James Conor
Oberst: Mexican Getaway “We did a lot of recording outside, which was great. We rented a piano from the city, and we couldn’t fit it in any of the doors, so it just remained on the porch. I did a lot of my vocals outside. It was a pretty unique situation and I think because of that, the record sounds like it does.” – Conor Oberst Portishead:
Solving Silence “We tried working on tracks as early as 2001, but there wasn’t any direction for us in any way.” – Adrian Utley “A lot of magazines or TV shows want their Portishead or what they consider is their Portishead. They don’t really want us, because we’re just difficult fuckers who don’t want to do anything we don’t want to do.” – Geoff Barrow Spiritualized:
Searching for a Spark “This album, the start was more conceptual. All the songs were going to be written about fictional characters to get outside of myself. I thought if I could write about fictional characters I could write songs that were unlike anything I had done before, but they didn’t end up like that. They ended up being more personal than anything I’d done before. The vision for it was quite different from how it became.” – Jason Pierce Supergrass:
Back to Basics “Normally what makes a song great isn’t the six other instruments you’ve got over the guitar chords or the bit of vibraphone or bit of banjo that appears on the middle eight. What makes a song great is what’s underneath—the melody, the lyrics, and the chords. Once you get all that right, you shouldn’t have to rely on loads of other instruments.” – Gaz Coombes
Our section dedicated to the best and most exciting new artists. The
Black Ghosts: The Princes Of Darkness “The Black Ghosts has happened naturally without much struggle or angst. There are too many people laboring over music. It’s important to care about what you do, but not squeeze the life out of it with nitpicking.” – Simon Lord Lykke
Li: Swede Revenge “I’ve been told a lot of times that I’m not a good singer and I suck, and that I’m crazy....You want to rebel against everybody who ever doubted you.” – Lykke Li Miles
Benjamin Anthony Robinson: Friends Like These “Had I spent that time as a productive college student, or more focused on something, sometimes I think my life would be different. It’s only notable in that it enveloped more of my years than it probably should have. It is like I got a Master’s or something, like I got my degree in burnout-ology.” – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Reviews: Over 200 albums, singles, EPs, books, films, TV shows, video games, comic books, and DVDs reviewed, including the following releases: Music: The Accidental Film: Baghead Television: 30 Days DVDs: The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen Video Games: Grand Theft Auto IV Books: David Browne: Goodbye
20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth Comic Books: Basic Instructions:
Help is on the Way: A Collection of Basic Instructions Click here for a list of stores that sell Under the Radar Click here for info on how to subscribe to Under the Radar
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