anyway, i'm in the mood for ranting, so let's rant:
who is sick to death of seeing every american band in the past year opening their show with something along the lines of "duh, we didn't vote for him, not our president, not our fault, please forgive our countrymen for being a tad on the slow side, duh, war really suuuucks, rock against bush, yeah, come on kids, heehaw, merch stand on the left in the back of the venue, etc..."?
this will not do, this doesn't even go a tenth of the way. when bush was elected, even though he wasn't really elected, hardly anybody moved, when they got september 11th, did they move? oh yeah they did, they moved like there was no tomorrow, whining about the "first attack on their soil", and quickly all rallying around the flag, giving their government all the power it asked for to invade, pillage, destroy and torture. Were they rocking against bush then? we were there at the time and i remember 90% of the bands we met, heard, heard of, read or read about claiming that George w. was making "quite a good job" and that "ye shall not criticise a traumatized nation".
the time to act and to speak up was 3 years ago, but no, these bands and their labels were putting up flags on their websites, too scared of not selling enough records and hurting the feelings of the redneck parents of their fan base. great. they had the unique opportunity to promote freedom of thought, to speak as the independent rock community should speak, but no, i remember clearly a gigantic proportion of indie rockers wondering whether to still buy rage against the machine records because, on their website, that band had (gasp) said bad things about american foreign politics, and pointed out that it had led directly to the sept.11 attacks. that was the attitude of way too many of our fellow rockers at the time.
now, as more and more of them (finally!) speak out, you can see the whole pack running after the all-new "bush-hating" market, how cool is that, they have their generation's ronnie reagan they can blame everything on! fun! so now sum 41 or sugarcult can pretend they're the dead ks or the minutemen...
Yep, the rockers of the new millennium have failed at protesting, how ironic... the only reason an independent scene exists is precisely for it to scream out when something is wrong, not necesarily in song (we all know that a good website rant has more impact than a so-so v.04 protest song...), nor in between songs (most of these guys talk way too much anyway, i can't stand talking between songs, damn singers...), but at least as public personae, however small the public, in interviews, on the net, after the shows, etc...
well, i'm all ranted out already. that said, if that bush dude gets thrown out, nobody will complain. i just hope our american colleagues will keep up the voices of dissent, cause that country, bushed or kerryd, stays a gigantic threat to the world...
www.favez.com
who is sick to death of seeing every american band in the past year opening their show with something along the lines of "duh, we didn't vote for him, not our president, not our fault, please forgive our countrymen for being a tad on the slow side, duh, war really suuuucks, rock against bush, yeah, come on kids, heehaw, merch stand on the left in the back of the venue, etc..."?
this will not do, this doesn't even go a tenth of the way. when bush was elected, even though he wasn't really elected, hardly anybody moved, when they got september 11th, did they move? oh yeah they did, they moved like there was no tomorrow, whining about the "first attack on their soil", and quickly all rallying around the flag, giving their government all the power it asked for to invade, pillage, destroy and torture. Were they rocking against bush then? we were there at the time and i remember 90% of the bands we met, heard, heard of, read or read about claiming that George w. was making "quite a good job" and that "ye shall not criticise a traumatized nation".
the time to act and to speak up was 3 years ago, but no, these bands and their labels were putting up flags on their websites, too scared of not selling enough records and hurting the feelings of the redneck parents of their fan base. great. they had the unique opportunity to promote freedom of thought, to speak as the independent rock community should speak, but no, i remember clearly a gigantic proportion of indie rockers wondering whether to still buy rage against the machine records because, on their website, that band had (gasp) said bad things about american foreign politics, and pointed out that it had led directly to the sept.11 attacks. that was the attitude of way too many of our fellow rockers at the time.
now, as more and more of them (finally!) speak out, you can see the whole pack running after the all-new "bush-hating" market, how cool is that, they have their generation's ronnie reagan they can blame everything on! fun! so now sum 41 or sugarcult can pretend they're the dead ks or the minutemen...
Yep, the rockers of the new millennium have failed at protesting, how ironic... the only reason an independent scene exists is precisely for it to scream out when something is wrong, not necesarily in song (we all know that a good website rant has more impact than a so-so v.04 protest song...), nor in between songs (most of these guys talk way too much anyway, i can't stand talking between songs, damn singers...), but at least as public personae, however small the public, in interviews, on the net, after the shows, etc...
well, i'm all ranted out already. that said, if that bush dude gets thrown out, nobody will complain. i just hope our american colleagues will keep up the voices of dissent, cause that country, bushed or kerryd, stays a gigantic threat to the world...
www.favez.com
they gave an excelent gig at the pukkelpop festival this year best show i have seen this year i think they headlined the skate-stage on the first day.. for only 150 people normally are there arround 8000 
