Episode 43 – Anarchist Music
I anticipated a conversation about Anarchist Music. Where does it begin and end. What is great Anarchist Music today? Do Spotify set lists inform or infuriate? That is not what happened.
We had generation gap fights. We fought about Thin Lizzy. We did everything wrong and yet we survived. We talked about “Anarchist” “music” and it was an interested collision of opinions, some stories, and another episode of Anarchy Bang!
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This is going to continue to be a european-based (would have been much appreciated to have heard of what could be considered anarchist music beyond that scope) presentation of histories: The freedom and experimentation of german squatters and communes in the late 60’s and the sounds/approaches that came from that. In england Gong, The Deviants, Hawkwind, and Pink Fairies continued the in the liberatory spirit with their lifeways and creative activity. There were the free festivals in britain and squatting of the 70’s. And yes, there was punk kicking off there as well. There were also many noise/industrial/experimental projects coming out of squatland (of which many participants mindsets/approaches could be considered to be quite anarchic). Very present DIY activities with squatted autonomous centres/venues and the like. All this took to the road in early/mid 80’s with the Peace Convoy/“new age travelers” coming into being. In the 90’s “rave”/renegade parties were added to this mix, with the defiant sound systems of Spiral Tribe and Total Resistance. The fantastic Reclaim The Streets created “autonomous zones” in city centres for those who so wished to revolt/party simultaneously (which I think is the best combo for any form of revelry, music-based of otherwise).
Besides just whatever genre/categorization the output can be placed within, consider also how the sounds are being created. A gathering of friends taking part in creating immediate/improvised sound together that is unplugged (or powered from salvaged off-grid sources), passing around sound-making devices of their own creation/discovery and taking turns with or vocalizing together, surrealist-inspired collective lyric writing games (of their own formulation as well), and many other approaches/activities that I think are still quite unorthodox and a liberation from “musical” business-as-usual.
I do wish I could have participated in this episode in some way, I have a tendency to nerd out quite passionately in these matters (You might have picked up on that).