Speaker 1hey hey hey what's happening welcome back to the james kennedy podcast i'm full up of cold in case you're wondering what's wrong with my voice and if you haven't seen on my socials we are now 28 days away from the release of the album rebel by my band james kennedy and the underdogs is going to be out on november 30th man i can't wait for this thing to hit you know what i mean it's been a long time in the pocket for me now and i'm just super excited to set this thing free and let it run in the wild and not have to keep it a secret any longer man super excited you know we can't wait to tour this bad boy hard next year as well festivals are already coming in thick and fast for next year which is cool and if you haven't seen we're doing a very very limited edition run for this record on vinyl so you can see the stunning artwork that was created by mike the boyfriend of our drummer aggie and everyone that pre-orders the thing on vinyl gets a hand-numbered edition signed by the entire band delivered to your door if that sounds like your kind of thing get over to jameskennedyofficial.com slash rebel and scoop up one of those bad boys quick because they are going fast now usually i have to make some kind of creative segue between my shameless self-promotion and getting us near to the subject of today's conversation with today's guest but today i don't need to do that because the subject with today's guest is very much in the same vein as political punk rock music rock and roll and revolution baby i'm super excited for this one we're going to be talking about the clash one of my favorite bands we're going to be talking about the redskins we're going to be talking about politics in music does art have a place in music does art have a duty in times of crisis and art times a crisis the very things that give us the furnace that creates things like punk rock and whatever the next movement's going to be who knows so stick around and find out but before you do that have you subscribed to the podcast i nag you every single week come on man i'm bringing you the juice here give me that star rating give me a follow give me a share let's get this bad boy out there man come on let's go clickety click get on it okay and with that said let's get down to business and bring on the next one today's guest because we are joined today by gregor gall a professor of industrial relations and a hugely prolific writer with a focus on trade unionism labor movements left-wing politics and music for he comes today with his latest book marxism in music creating a communist contraculture the redskins rock and roll and revolution gregor thanks for being here brother how you doing thank
Speaker 2you very much james for the invitation i appreciate it
Speaker 1well matt honestly i got loads i want to ask you that's quite an introduction there i'm loving the title of the new book um i haven't had a chance to read it yet as i mentioned so i'm hoping that you can tell us what it's all about and what motivated you to write it because that's quite a title i do like
Speaker 2titles that have alliteration in them so um that was why there's the c's in the first part if you like and then the the r's to do with the redskins um i uh i grew up being a massive clash fan um i wasn't young i'm sorry i wasn't old enough rather i was too young to see the original clash lineup but i saw the what is known as clash mark 2 um which existed from 1983 to 1986 and i saw them three times live at the brixton academy in london in 1984 and it's a you know it's an often said thing that certain things change your life but um i was already massively into the clash otherwise i wouldn't have gone to see the gigs but seeing seeing the clash live made it very apparent to me how powerful live music can be particularly when you have somebody who is such a front person uh as joe strummer um and you know people know a lot of people know what joe strummer was about in terms of his lyrics the interviews that he did all those kind of things and it all came together seeing the band live and although there's controversy over the uh whether the band live or not i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know whether the mark one version or the mark two version which one was best to me they were a very very powerful outfit um with great stage presence um so anyway i i ended up writing a book about joe strummer's politics because they were very important to my own political development um i think i'm much more left wing than joe strummer was but that doesn't take away from the fact that joe strummer was if you like something of a teacher for me as a young the reason why i wrote uh this book about the redskins was that in that book about joe strummer which is called punk rock politics of joe strummer um the most mentioned band other than well billy bragg being a solo artist other than paul weller in terms of style council the most mentioned band was the redskins and the redskins were if you like not just a band that was against something against thatcherism the tories capitalism but they were also a band that were very much for thing which was revolutionary socialism and the contrast with strummer there is quite acute quite sharp joe strummer was very left wing he was um very much against certain things obviously racism would be an obvious thing fascism but he was relatively um ambiguous if you like about what exactly he was for other than you know he was for the um overthrow of um uh samosa the dictator dictator in nicaragua and supported the nicaraguan revolution but on other things he was a lot less um specific whereas the redskins were a band that was quite clear what they were about two of the leading members there was only really three of them but two of the leading members were members of the socialist workers party which is a uh trotskyist party in britain so that was that was kind of why i wrote the book and i was really sort of testing out if you have a much more um hardcore if you like in specific form of politics that you're trying to get across in your music i was really testing out the issue how effective is that and to cut a long story short when i took testimony um for the research for the book i found out that um of the people that were fans and followers of the redskins some joined the socialist workers party the trotskyist party i mentioned others joined the labour party when it actually still had a left-wing party and some left-wing um kind of uh side to it others joined the communist party or many others who were already on the left were sustained in their uh their willingness their ability their confidence to remain on the left so that's really the reason why i wrote the book and i think again to cut the story very short it does show that some kind of music some types of music can be very effective in spreading political messages and obviously i someone on the left i'm i'm most interested and most concerned about how do you people on the left use music to spread their message particularly in a time uh which is dominated by neoliberalism and now that you know they sort of move towards fascism
Speaker 1hundred percent man well it's it's fucking amazing with a band like the clash that they're still having that effect on generations now i mean you know i'm an 80s child so i never got to see the clash and i didn't really discover them until later in life you know i was kind of like a grunge kid you know i was into nirvana and rage against the machine and all that sort of stuff they they were my kind of like they gave me that that thing that um i think my father got from the clash you know what i mean um or the pistols or something like that but they're still they're still relevant today man i mean london calling and you know the first album fucking jesus christ you know the fact musically and lyrically it's still just as relevant today and also has that kind of political awakening effect in people such as myself who discovered it a generation later is really really unique i think
Speaker 2isn't it um two examples one from the clash and joe strummer the other one from the redskins but they speak to the point you've just made about how it can can be a political awakening almost like an epiphany so um many people say about spanish bombs which was a song on um london calling the double album the clash released in 1979 many people say that they didn't know that there was such a thing as the spanish civil war that lasted between 1936 and 1939 it was a kind of precursor to the rise of the well yeah a precursor to hitler and the in the second world war and the you know the holocaust and so on um they didn't know about it and what they found out that there were certain things like um george orwell wrote the book a homage to catalonia they didn't know anything about frederick lorca the left-wing poet who was murdered by the fascists in spain um so they found they kind of took this and it was like a little tiny little history lesson that that's that whetted their appetite and they this is obviously back in the day before the internet they either went to the public library school library asked a history teacher that might have been a bit left-wing um what was the spanish civil war about and then a similar thing with the redskins so there was a period in which the clash of the redskins overlapped for a few years and this this speaks to me in terms of my own political evolution there's a song on um it's the redskins only released one album so there's a song in that called uh it can be done and it speaks about um different revolutions starting with the october uh revolution in 1917 in russia but it moves on to talk about a revolution that wasn't successful one in germany between 1918 and 1923 and i i think i'd heard of people like Rosa Luxemburg, Woman Revolutionary, Karl Liebknecht. I didn't know that they had both been murdered by the fascists at that time. But it made me find out about this thing, the German Revolution. And I was at university at the time, at the University of Aberdeen, and I went to the university library. Unfortunately, there was a book about the German Revolution in the history section. It turns out it was the same book that Christine from the Redskins had read that led him to write this song. So to me, you've got two examples there that, you know, a three-, four-minute kind of pop song tells the listener about something they didn't already know about, stimulates their interest. And the song never attempts to say this is the be-all and end-all, you don't need to know anything else. It basically says, you know, if you're interested in this, implicitly it says, if you're interested in this, go and find out more about it. And that's exactly what I did. And I found out through research for Spanish bombs and for the Redskins that it can be done. That's what people did. So I think songs, at certain points in time, can be tremendously powerful. They don't change the world, but they can change individual consciousness. And, you know, that's important. And it's not just, obviously, written in the 1980s. You go back to America in the late 60s, early 70s, with songs, civil rights songs, Black Power songs, they can be tremendously inspiring and have that educational role.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love that. I totally echo that as well. I mean, for me, it was the Manic Street Preachers that got me into Noam Chomsky and things like that. I did the same thing, going to the library and reading up and all that stuff. And for me, it just made political activism cool. You know, I was much more likely to listen to the bands that I liked, that I thought were cool, than some kind of stuffy politician or some kind of author or, you know, some kind of. I don't know, left-wing activist banging on about something that I didn't know much about at that time. So bands kind of gave you a license that it was okay to dabble with that stuff and to take an interest. And, yeah, I think as an angry young man, you're much more likely to listen to your favourite artists than, yeah, a teacher or a parent or something. So it's very powerful when bands merge those two aspects.
Speaker 2Absolutely. And I think the other thing is that they merge it in the short form. You know, it's like they don't have to go away and read a long book, a book that's. Yeah. that's maybe dense and difficult. Here is something that's very short, very appealing. It's set to music. It's not just some kind of, like, three-minute speech. If you listen to something like one of my favourite songs, so The Clash is clamped down, again, from London Calling album, and it's about racism and fascism. But, I mean, the music really fits the, you know, the. I suppose it was really. It was Mick Jones, the lead guitarist and arranger that did the music. Joe Strummer tended to do the lyrics. But it's. The two really come together in a powerful form. And I think if the music hadn't been so suitable or amenable for the lyrics, you know, it wouldn't have had the same impact. So the lyrics are important, but if they're supported by the music, which is like the clampdown song, it's almost working for the clampdown, clampdown being this, like, you know, fascist kind of right-wing racist clampdown on people. It's almost like music that you could imagine in your wildest dreams, you know, rushing to the barricades to defend the barricades against attacks from, you know, your enemies sort of thing. It's that kind of thing. It's tremendously inspiring. So music can have that influence. I think that music has that potency more than reading a novel, although I think that can be powerful, more than a painting, more than, you know, theatre. I think it's. Not only is it very, very powerful, but. And I know that all generations listen to music, but when you're young and you get turned on to music, and it's like your thing more than it is football or, goodness, or girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever it is, it is so powerful at that time in your life. It's really, really, you know, educational. And you're at that time when it has that formative influence on you that you carry on later on in your life. And I'm approaching 60 and I still listen to The Clash. I don't know what. I won't guess what your age is, James, but the fact that you've mentioned the Manic Street Peachers, who, you know, were really king to the fore in the early 1990s shows that that music, to you, has stayed with you as well.
Speaker 1100%. Yeah, it's. Well, I think with music, like you said, it's different to sport or painting or, you know, your first love or something like that because it kind of. It weaves into your being, doesn't it? You carry it with you for the rest of your life. It's the soundtrack to your developments and those peak moments in your life. So it's a very. Yeah, it's a strange one. It's like you just said. Now you're 60, you still listen to The Clash. And you probably still love it as much as you did when you first discovered it. And I'm very much the same. You know, like I said, I'm a 90s boy. So for me, I can still listen to Rage Against the Machine and I've heard it a thousand times, but it still gets me going, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah, indeed, indeed. I think that's because music, more than some other art forms, has a greater emotional and psychological impact and connection. And different songs, you know, if you were to talk. to, you know, somebody who you respected about a particular song that you think was very powerful, it might have more of an impact on you than the other person you're talking to. It can be quite a personal thing, but, you know, when artists have a big, you know, back catalogue, a big canon, then you can find in their back catalogue, you know, particular songs that mean something to you because certain events, you know, world events, you know, maybe like what's going on in France at the moment with riots, it speaks to you in a way that wouldn't necessarily speak to somebody else in the same way. So, yeah, there's an emotional and psychological impact and people have done studies on this and I do mention some of them in the Redskins book. I think it's, you know, maybe not something to go into in the here and now, but it has to be acknowledged that that has that impact that some other forms of art don't have.
Speaker 1Do you think then that music or art more generally has a role to play? In overthrowing, you know, injustice or tyranny or fascism? Does it have a role? And how effective a tool is it in doing so? For me, I feel like the answer lies somewhere in the fact that throughout history, the powers that be have tried to censor and subdue art and control art. So that hints to me that it is a powerful tool. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2Arts and culture, I can just use that broadest term. It does two things. The first thing is that it tends to represent status quo. Now, that can be done in the sense of if you go back hundreds of years, you would have the court of king or queen or whatever and they would patronise somebody. They would basically pay for an artist to paint them, their family or houses or whatever. So art can actually represent and figuratively portray the status quo. That can be done in a sort of way that is entirely supportive, particularly if a person is being basically paid to do it. It can also be done in a way which can be kind of critical and, you know, excuse my language, take the piss out of it, depending on how it's portrayed. But that's one side of it. The other side of it is that art and culture doesn't just represent what is going on, doesn't just portray the status quo, it can actually try and change things. I think those are the two basic historical trajectories that art has been shown to have. And the major one, unfortunately, if you like, has always been to portray the status quo. Now, we've lived under a society called capitalism for the last 200 years or more. The current phase, epoch or era that we're in is a neoliberal phase. It's a phase of capitalism. And so if you think about most of the stuff that's in the charts, whether it's going from Taylor Swift to God knows what, some of it, if you like, doesn't even seem to directly address anything that's going on in the world. It's just like somebody's love life or their personal relationships, kind of love and loss type stuff. And even though that seems to be completely apolitical, I would say that it is. It is political in another way because it deliberately chooses not to say anything about anything, if you like. It doesn't say the way the world is at the moment is either good or bad or anything else. Then you get the kind of, I think, something that developed out of kind of hip hop and rap in the United States in particular. It went from being quite rebellious and radical, you know, with like NWA and Public Enemy. It then went to stuff like 50 Cents, who were really saying you know, if you're not rich and successful, it's your own fault. Look at me, you know, 50 Cents started, took that name because that's what he allegedly started off with. And then he becomes, you know, kind of very rich and famous and all that sort of stuff. So you get some kind of art and culture that deliberately tries to legitimize and support the neoliberal phase of capitalism that we're in. So you've got like two variations of that. supporting the status quo, then you've got the alternative. I mean, you mentioned and Rage Against the Machine there are loads of other bands which have done that kind of thing some more successfully than others and you look at just the controversy that's engulfed Ed Sheeran recently all the support artists on his American tour pulled out because Malcolm Moore wasn't going to be allowed to play at a particular stadium that was owned by the guy that owns the Kraft conglomerate and clearly they were saying something now it's not my kind of music if you like I know that makes me sound like some old kind of whiny you know always always better back in the day sort of thing some kind of old curmudgeon if you like but I did find out enough about some of the stuff that Malcolm Moore has done it would be wrong to say that he only makes statements that are pro rights of the Palestinians there are a couple of songs that he's done that do talk about politics but in the main what you have at the moment I think are some people who use their profile and their platform to say things and that's great I applaud them for doing that but what would be to me so much more powerful and better is if more of their songs more of their albums and anything that they release in their lyrics they deal with these issues because I think it's one thing to say something on stage or when you're interviewed by the media it's much more powerful and far reaching if you put that sentiment into your lyrics and you know it gets more of an airing a hearing because you look at the Spotify figures or YouTube or other streaming platforms many more people are going to listen to a song than I don't know some kind of statement that you made to I don't know whoever you know whatever news channel it was in America so I think there are as I say there's two sides to those that support the status quo the ones that don't say anything but implicitly that's for it there's those that are explicitly for it and then you've got some of the rebels and the radicals and those that want to resist and to me the question then becomes how can you be more effective in rebelling and resisting and being radical and some bands like Regiment Against the Machine are much more successful than others but we go back in time into my time more in the 80s and there were many other bands to mention you know in 19 I think I'm getting this right 1980 the specials Ghost Town was a massive massive single I'd have to check this but I'm fairly sure it was certainly in the top 10 it may even have been number one and it was talking about the beginnings of de-industrialisation mass unemployment and that was affecting Britain and the lyrics were you know they were very clear without being like kick the Tories out, kick Thatcher out it was just very very and the music it was set to it was very kind of foreboding and so on so there is a tradition to that music of rebelling and radicalism that goes back decades and decades and you could mention not just the likes of Billy Bragg in Britain but Woody Guthrie in America Pete Seeger and so on
Speaker 1yeah yeah I totally agree with you man and silence is compliance isn't it I mean you know not saying anything is the same as acquiescence with you know the bad guys so yeah I mean I think I did read something that you said recently when you were asked about the Ed Sheeran thing which was inevitably going to come up when speaking to yourself on this subject and I think you said that he could have told Robert Kraft to fuck off which you know he could have and should have you know I mean possibly easier for me to say as someone who is a politician particularly outspoken artist that has been listening to this sort of music my entire life than it is maybe someone like Ed Sheeran that writes songs about his girlfriend but you know still he is part of a massive machine he has advisors he knows what influence and clout he has and the fact that he bowed down to some billionaire fucking businessman is pretty shameful I think
Speaker 2yeah I think it's almost I mean I think there's probably obviously I don't know the guy but I imagine there's two things there's one is like what you've alluded to is there's all the kind of record company the media management people saying you know safety is the best course say nothing you know that's the path of least controversy but I think some people don't realise potentially the power that they could have if they chose to use it he clearly didn't and when he was kind of forced to come out with this mea culpa this apology as I understand it it was almost like you know right off an autocue it seemed very very very insincere didn't seem genuine and so he he almost like doubled down on you know on the kind of mistake he'd made by then saying something that didn't come across as being sincere whereas he could have turned the situation around but then then again you know that would have required some kind of personal epiphany on his part to go from I write songs about like you say about my girlfriend or whatever to what do I think about the world you know what's right what's wrong and how do I how am I as a massive selling artist gonna you know create a situation that's better than the one that exists at the moment and you know nobody was expecting Ed Sheeran to turn into kind of a socialist revolutionary but he might have just said something that was like well you know positive but also critical for example he might have said well what's the British government doing about supporting genocide you know the genocide being done being carried out by the Israeli state he could have talked about loads of other things he could have said why is it that basically Britain is obsequious and subservient to America under Trump there's loads of things he could have said and also you know he could have been relatively opportunistic because if you look at the polls it would actually be quite popular to say those things at the moment Trump is on the is on the way down it looks you know support for for the rights of the Palestinians is a substantial you know part of the population notwithstanding any backlash that he would have got but you know you could almost say that somebody who's really really canny and almost quite calculating could have said well I'll do this I don't believe in it but I'll do it nonetheless but he didn't even go that far
Speaker 1yeah it's crazy isn't it I mean you're going to draw heat whatever happens I mean you know somebody like Roger Waters who I who I always love I love Pink Floyd and respect he gets criticised all the time and you know for good reason sometimes because he is he can be a bit of a dickhead but I mean you know I agree with what he says and how he uses his position but I mean you know I would much rather be criticised for speaking out and pissing a few people off than being criticised for the guy that kowtows to power and you're never going to shake that off you know yeah
Speaker 2you mentioned the guy from Pink Floyd I remember that when Sinead O'Connor tore up a photograph of the Pope on stage she was supported by Roger Waters there I mean it was a very difficult time for her and all she was protesting about was the you know the abuse of children by priests and so on which which we now know has happened you know over and over again but she had the temerity to do that at the time you know I think this would be what late 80s early 90s she took pelters for it right enough but you know that was such a strength of character that she decided to do it and you know took the flak and you know I think she wouldn't have said I shouldn't have done that she said I should have done it I did do it and the fact that you're criticising me only shows up how correct I was to do that
Speaker 1100% 100% well you made an interesting point about the Redskins as well like a lot of the artists I mean there are plenty of artists still today who are speaking out on issues and using their platform um but it's very much in the form like you mentioned earlier where it's commenting on one issue or reacting to one issue but not much more than that and obviously your book um explores the Redskins and they had a much more ideological nature to the band didn't they it wasn't it wasn't just reacting to this issue or that issue they were actually actively involved it was a deeply entrenched part of the whole nature of the band wasn't it do you feel that is something that is lacking since those times um you mentioned neoliberalism I I feel that because of the nature of industrial life back in the 70s and 80s it meant that artists reflected working life in that way more than they would now where they've had you know 40 years of Thatcherism and neoliberalism kind of grinding everybody down to the point where ideology the idea that there could ever be an alternative ideology to live by is kind of gone like like neoliberalism won so all we can do now is like shout about issues and but not really espouse an alternative ideology do you feel like that's what's happened or is or is another cultural force at play
Speaker 2I think you've nailed it there um the the so neoliberalism really begins in the 1970s and excuse me most obviously it becomes much more advanced and embedded when you've got the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 in Downing Street and Ronald Reagan in the White House in America in 1980. And we've really had no departures from it. I mean, Tony Blair, to my mind, was a version, a Labour version of neoliberalism. In fact, when Margaret Thatcher, before she died, she was asked what was her proudest achievement. She said, Tony Blair and New Labour. What she meant by that was she made Labour change from being social democratic, you know, in favour of full employment, the welfare state, blah, blah, blah. She made Labour change from what it was to what it became. Tony Blair was, if you like, only the mechanism by which that happened. So, yeah, neoliberalism is the dominant ideological force in the vast majority of the world today. There's no getting away from that. And unfortunately, it's not changed. You know, there was a slight blip that some people thought was going to signal change when. when there was the pandemic and you had massive state intervention. But what they misread was the situation. That state intervention, eat out. I can't remember the Russian saying that one, eat out to support the economy type thing. That was basically state intervening to support capitalism at a time of, you know, crisis. And you have a situation where in loads of other places, you go back to the great financial crisis, particularly in the United States, there was massive nationalisation of Fannie Mae, and Fannie Mae and Freddie, you can't remember that. There were two big insurance companies. Those are the two companies that really started the credit crunch and the housing crisis and so on. So when you had the state intervening, it wasn't socialism of any stripe. It was state intervening to support capitalism. That's two examples in the last 20 years. So you still have it. The rise of reform in Britain doesn't change that. It's a particular variant. A racist variant of it. So, yeah, I think it's. The reason I say all that is I think it is genuinely much harder to be left-wing socialist revolutionary anywhere, but particularly in Britain, than it has been for decades and decades. And that, of course, filters through and percolates through to music. So I think you're absolutely on the money when you say that it's relatively easy for an artist, to say in one song or maybe a couple of songs, something about something. And I don't want to decry them for doing that. It might be Palestine. It might be homelessness. It might be unemployment, whatever. But you're absolutely right to say that it is not part of a wider worldview which says, if you join the dots together, why do we have failing NHS? Why do we have massive youth unemployment? Why do we have racism, et cetera? What is it? What's the common factor in all this? And to my mind, it's capitalism. It's the neoliberal form of capitalism. But they don't look for the other signs of it, and then they don't join them all up together. And what the Redskins did was that they did have an ideology which said that all these issues come from one source. That one source is capitalism. We need to abolish capitalism in order to. If capitalism is the cause, and homelessness, and unemployment are the symptoms, we need to deal with the cause and the symptoms. They're two sides of the same coin. So you do have an absence of that today. One of the contemporaries of the Redskins at the time was Billy Bragg, who obviously is still gigging and releasing material today. He'll be, I think he's going to be 70 in a couple of years' time. And so he's no spring chicken anymore. Now, he's had slightly, if you like, less left-wing form of politics. But nonetheless, he is still one of the artists that is talking about various issues. And I find it hard to think of others that are doing the similar. There are two people that I can think of that are broadly similar to Billy Bragg. One guy is called Joe Solo. Another person is a woman called Grace Petrie. And they. They do the same kind of thing as Billy Bragg. But, you know, it's likely that very, very few people have heard of Joe Solo or Grace Petrie. And that speaks to the fact that it is much more difficult now to speak out and to get a platform, or to get a wide platform for the kind of, you know, lyrics and content that you're singing about and that you want to let people know about. So, yeah, it's absolutely true that there aren't enough. There aren't enough genuinely left-wing musicians and so on around. And some of that is down to their kind of, if you like, their personal predilections. They don't want to stand out. They don't want to put their head above the parapet. But it's also these wider societal forces where, you know, left-wing ideas. We had a little change, you know, in the late 2010s when Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party. We know what happened there. Taken over by Keir Starmer. Now we've got Andy Burnham. You know, that's not. That's not really. The fact that Jeremy Corbyn was basically defenestrated, he was kicked out, and then replaced by Keir Starmer and then Andy Burnham. Unless you're deliberately rebelling against that, I don't think either Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham are going to kind of inspire you to think, oh, I need to write left-wing lyrics or, you know. I mean, I'm not sure who younger people would look to, in Britain today or around the world. I mean, it's difficult to find particular, you know, individuals that you could use as a kind of symbol or manifestation of those ideas.
Speaker 1Very good point.
Speaker 2You probably would have to go back a lot further in history.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a very good point, actually. Yeah, like the revolutionary iconography and imagery is certainly about, you know, 80 years behind us, but definitely we don't have any modern versions of that. Do we, for sure, to be inspired by?
Speaker 2I was a student in the 1980s and mid to late 1980s. And, you know, it was quite common for people in their halls of residence or flats or whatever to have posters like Che Guevara. Some maybe Chairman Mao in China, a few Karl Marxes, maybe the odd Leon Trotsky. But I don't think that they, you know, I don't think. I don't know. I don't know for sure, but I'd be surprised if there's anything like the same thing going on at all. And so, you know, there was an American folk artist whose name escapes me right now. He is mentioned in the book. He said the only chance of revolution. He was talking about America in the sort of late 60s, early 70s. He said the only chance of revolution is getting Che Guevara to become Elders Presley. And what he meant by that was. He meant that we need somebody with the politics of Che Guevara, but the popularity of Elders Presley, the kind of outreach, and they put the two together. And we don't have that kind of figure at the moment. I'm not saying we won't, but right now we don't have that.
Speaker 1Well, there's a cruel irony to that as well, isn't there? I mean, a band like The Clash or the Redskins would speak out about the evils of capitalism. But the irony of it is, unfortunately, is that most people would never, never have heard of them had they not had the backing, certainly in the case of The Clash with CBS Records, of a major record company. And the same could be said of Rage Against the Machine, you know, and so many of these bands. Like, we never would have heard of them had it not been for the fact that they were signed to major labels. They had all the expensive radio plug-in. They were flown around the world, put on all the big TV shows and stuff like that. And that's not to criticize the bands. It's just an interesting irony, I feel, that made their influence. More possible was the fact that there was still that unfortunate influence of the seedy hand of capitalism.
Speaker 2Malcolm X, the black revolutionary in America, he had this face by any means necessary. And certainly that's what Joe Strummer of The Clash looked at CBS, a sort of necessary evil. I mean, Joe Strummer was aware of what other bands were doing. The obvious example would be Crass, the anarchist band who had their own. record label, they had their own kind of commune, they did their own artwork. And, you know, sincere as they were, clearly the influence of Crass, even though other bands like Discharge and Conflict came in their way, they were small scale compared to The Clash. And so Strummer. Yeah, I mean, one thing that The Clash or the members of The Clash did that was silly was they didn't read the contract they were signing, which was to produce 10 albums. Fortunately, they got away with some of it because London Calling was a double album, Sandinista was a triple album. But nonetheless, you know, they didn't read the contract, which is really pretty stupid. They were just, they were so desperate to get a contract. That said, they knew what they were signing up to and they knew there would be conflict and tensions and they needed to navigate those tensions as best as they could. Because, yeah, I mean, back in the day, the big kind of like market to break was America. So once you've done your your kind of sterling work going round all the, playing all the gigs and the clubs in Britain you wanted to go to America America, not just because it was like the kind of mythical home of rock and roll but also at that time during the Cold War America was either one of the two superpowers or it was the most important superpower and so what happened to America was important so you wanted to go there you wanted to tour there and the class did that on a number of occasions so they were well aware, Strummer Joe Strummer in particular was well aware of those conflicts but there was no other way around it you know, today to some extent I wouldn't exaggerate it but to some extent you can independently not only produce but also distribute your own music because there are different platforms available now, the technologies are available and they're cheaper and they're relatively easy to use so that's important but and you know, think of the example of Taylor Swift she's a rebel in as much as she's bought bought back her own back catalogue but she's still a massive figure that's supported by you know, the kind of music and record industry overall so it's not changed that much even if it allows I suppose what it allows is some artists some musicians, some bands to get up to the point where they're noticed by you know, the majors that would have been more difficult to do it under your own steam you would have had to maybe get signed by an independent label like Rough Trade then do well get kind of, you know, one of your singles into the top 40 in Britain this is talking about the 1980s kind of thing get on top of the pops then you might be offered a better contract financially better contract by a major once you'd, you know, done that but then that means you leave Rough Trade to go to a major so I think you can maybe get to that point on your own a bit more easily these days but it's still the case that the vast, as far as I know the vast majority of the most listened to the most streamed, you know, the most bought singles and albums are all from the majors so I think we're still in the clutches of the capitalist music industry which does make it difficult but sometimes there are ironies and paradoxes so in terms of the Redskins the band that I've written about in this book they knew that there would be difficulties signing to London Records which is owned by Decca but they also knew that they had a unique selling point which was the kind of left-wing revolutionary socialist lyrics and they knew that the record label didn't necessarily agree well, they knew that they knew that the record label didn't agree with the politics at all but they knew that if the record label the record label itself knew that if it tried to water down those lyrics it would undermine the selling ability of the Redskins record so there was some kind of compromise there if the Redskins had developed beyond having just one album and seven singles and existed beyond, you know, late 86, early 87 that compromise would have been tested a lot more and I don't know what the outcome would have been but it would have been for the time that they existed they managed to actually navigate those tensions quite well
Speaker 1I can imagine the tensions at the time were very real and it was, you know, a very difficult time socially in the 70s I mean, you know, some would say that was probably what was the spark that created punk rock but looking back at those times now it does feel a lot more innocent in a sense that there was an ideological alternative going back to what we were talking about at the start now, a band like The Clash today, you know if they formed today and they were singing the same songs the chance of them getting signed would be zero and unfortunately they would be doing all the things that you just mentioned you know, they would be self-distributing themselves onto Spotify and having to make silly little TikTok videos to try and get traction and things like that and that's the world we're living in now and I'm certain that there are thousands of politically outspoken and activist bands out there but because of the way that the industry has changed they're just never going to get heard and it does almost feel like things were a bit better back in the day when the goodies and the baddies was a lot more clearer, you know
Speaker 2In terms of the kind of political situation overall yes, it was a lot clearer you had a situation where even though, in my view, Labour had never been a socialist party it was left-wing, it was social democratic it believed in public ownership public health, public transport none of those things meant that you know, society was run by workers which is, I think, the definition of socialism coming from the likes of Karl Marx but it was clear that Labour was a different kind of party and so, you know, I mentioned the thing about Thatcher's greatest achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour that does make a massive difference and I think without that alternative being there a lot of people, they don't like to raise their horizons, their sights they quite understandably think about how do they make the rent this month how do they meet their food bills, their energy bills their sights are much, much lower and, you know, in some ways you could think well, that would be a reason why some people would not necessarily form the bands themselves but would actually say, well, our bands should be talking about these things but I think those things are so they're so encroaching, they're so powerful that, you know, just to get through the kind of week or the month you concentrate on the little things and you don't think about the bigger things so I think that's part of the mix but the other part of it is that for all the changes that we've mentioned in terms of how music is produced these days it is still the case that there is you know, sometimes rebel bands rebelled against what was called the man the man being the sort of figurative characterisation of the music industry it wasn't a person as such but it was the record company executive the one that said this would or wouldn't fly or we will or won't sign this band there is still that hierarchy there that hierarchy is very, very powerful and even if bands get signed I think you mentioned this earlier it's also whether the record company decides to put the resources into promoting the band how much do they promote their album how much, you know, back in the day you'd have things called radio pluggers people who would go around to try to convince a radio station to get a certain single on the playlist you know, there was the people like John Peel and David Kidd Jensen and Janice Long but they were like night-time, late-time music you wanted to get on the daytime stuff you know, the sort of Simon Bates or goodness what else on Radio 1 so if record companies are not going to put the resources into getting their artists onto you know, the kind of major airwaves whatever those airwaves now are then the bands, you know, they just won't get a hearing in the way that they need to and it's almost like a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy if they don't get that promotion they'll then get dropped from their record contract because, you know, their second album won't sell as well as the first album and that's not necessarily because that second album is worse than the first album it's because it didn't get the promotion and then, as I say, they get dropped you know, that kind of thing happens so it's just very difficult and then the other side of it is that bands, particularly the kind of lower-level bands they need to go out and tour much more in order to earn, you know, a living they need to sell more merchandise at the gigs you know, the kind of issue of surviving as a band when you decide to jack in your job you know, you've been working in Cafe Nero for five years and you're now going to become a full-time musician that really puts the pressure on your finances and again, that's not a great situation to be in in terms of trying to think about wider issues so it is a very hard situation plus the other thing that the Redskins certainly benefited from was that before this all changed in the late 80s, early 90s you could go on the dole you'd basically tell a couple of white lies you'd say, I have been looking for work but you obviously hadn't because you're rehearsing and demoing and all that you would get unemployment benefits you would also get housing benefits so you could get the rent for your flat or whatever you could actually make a very, very you know, you could survive on that money get your band together to a point where, you know, we actually really played well live you might have a lot of money you might get to do your first record your first single, that kind of thing all that's been taken away and there's almost like I used this phrase before it sounds a bit unwieldy there's been a middle-class-ization of a lot of art and culture because it's only really the bank of mum and dad of certain people who can afford to support their sons and daughters in this time because things like unemployment benefit and housing benefit have been taken away so this again isn't the natural territory for rebels your mum and dad no matter how much they love you are hopefully going to get some kind of return on all the money they've given you i don't necessarily mean that they that you pay it back but you use it wisely you become successful how do you become successful you fit in with the existing status quo very good
Speaker 1point yeah very good point and it to be when you mentioned the doll i almost had like a positive flashback it was like god remember those days like those days are gone yeah everything you've said is definitely true i like i'm in a a band that tours and stuff and you know puts out our own music independently and stuff like that and it's fucking hard man you know juggling real life and putting food on the table and stuff with literally no support from anybody not from a label because most of those have gone now um having to kind of figure out certainly if you want to if you're like a politically active band how to use the medium that is available to you which is now online in a way where you just don't get shadow banned by the algorithm which i have many times over being shadow banned to be made invisible online you know and finance everything it's it's really difficult and it does kind of mean uh one of the things i wanted to ask you as we sort of round up like do you feel like the conditions that will create the sort of bands like the redskins to bring it back to the theme of the book do you think that those social conditions are ever likely to to return again that can give us a band that does have not just a reactive song here and there but an actual ideological message that will inspire future generations or do you think that may have been something that was a
Speaker 2one-off i don't think it's a one-off i think you know there are there are there are a couple of bands um there's actually i don't really fully understand it but there seems to be some bands that are coming out of the republic of ireland you know the south of ireland which are a bit more so i'm not talking about kneecap i'm talking about bands like the mary wallopers um i'm talking about bands like the mary wallopers um that that that for a band to take that name you know if you know or you could search out you know look up on wiki what's the mary wallopers or what you know for them to take that name is is is significant then some of the stuff that they're talking about so there are some i mean they're not revolutionally socialist by any means but they are progressive they are radical so there are some of them um and then it's maybe down to you know do they get lucky you know do they get lucky do they get to play glastonbury next year or whatever i don't know that sort of thing so i wouldn't entirely dismiss the possibilities of it but those bands if they do get those breaks are still gonna have to really struggle hard to to um one to support themselves because i mean you know i i think it's it's pretty silly and naive just to criticize artists for wanting to make money you know everybody has the right to have or should have the right to have a decent standard of living from whatever kind of endeavor they choose you know to engage in so let's not be kind of crass about this they should have the ability to earn a decent living that doesn't mean they fly around the world in private jets i'm not talking about that kind of thing but you know if they've got families and you know they want to have their own house or whatever that kind of thing so um there are some around there there's a band from um i think there's something like from huddersfield called the hurriers they are a socialist band in terms of their lyrics and so on but again going back to the point that you've made several times they're not really kind of breaking through i mean the bands that are maybe breaking through a bit more is like um fountains dc um who are progressive or i don't know um dropkick murphy's i'm sorry this is just kind of thinking about kind of irish kind of bands or irish related bands but they're not they're not the kind of bands that you've asked me in my question about they are not they don't have a an overall world view um and they are not saying we're not just against what's happening to the in gaza or the west bank we're also talking about you know what's happening in america what may happen in brazil how the chinese are chinese state is basically buying up influence in africa through trying to get hold of rare mineral minerals and things like that they don't have this bigger world picture which is really lacking and i think that that means that no matter how good these are these bands that kind of bands we're talking about are you will never get this full picture and that means that you get little kind of insights into how evil and nefarious capitalism is but but capitalism is kind of getting off the hoop because you're not seeing the full picture going back to the point that we talked about earlier if music as i think it is is a good way of introducing people to radical ideas you need to have those those radical ideas out there most you know obviously explicitly not just a little tiny bit of something you know saying that you are anti uh what's happening to the palestinians is good but it's not enough there are so many more issues how do you explain that israel has been like the kind of police police watchman if you like for american interest in the middle east for decades and decades you know you can only start to explain that if you've got a wider understanding of how capitalism works and whose interests it serves and you know the obverse whose interest it doesn't serve so that's that's to me what's lacking but we almost must live in hope otherwise you know we'll go and slash our wrists kind of thing we'll commit suicide we have to live in hope i mean things are not great at the moment but they're not as bad as they could be they're not as bad as they have been and i think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the you know um if you think about times when they have been really you know absolutely awful so let's go back to the second world war yes there was a conventional war was fought um in many ways you know britain and america and particularly defeating the nazis but there was the french resistance there was the resistance in greece and yugoslavia in italy i mean miscellany the fascist dictator was hand by the italian resistance so even in the darkest days there is the possibility of resistance um we need to support that resistance and through you know whatever measures we can so i think as i say we have to live in hope otherwise we're all fucked and of course um that in some ways going against what i've just said because the issue of the environment and climate wasn't what it was 50 whatever many years ago you know we also now face the an existential threat to the future of humanity um elon musk may well be able to fly to mars or the moon and live there uh you know as the world you know goes on fire but for 99.9 percent of the population we're stuck here so we really you know do have to stop the earth being destroyed by by by capitalism psychopathic billionaires
Speaker 1well i think we have to live in hope or we're all fucked is a great question sentiment to end the conversation on gregor thanks so much for being here that was a fascinating conversation and i could ask you another two days worth of questions but i know i can't do that you've been very generous with your time we gotta plug the book before we round off a marxism in music creating a communist contra culture the redskins rock and roll and revolution is available everywhere right now and i'll put a link in the show notes so you can click on it and get it straight from there gregor can also be followed on x at left academic and on blue sky at gregor can also be followed on x at left academic and on blue sky at gregor can also be followed on sections and give us hell but as i said if you want to check out gregor's new book marxism in music creating a communist contra culture the redskins rock and roll and revolution it is available everywhere right now and now like i said there will be a link in the show notes and if you want to catch up with the rest of what greg has got going on go and give him a follow on blue sky at gregor gold super interesting guy he's done loads of great stuff lots there to check out and enjoy my voice is pretty much blown right now so you guys are going to be saved by the bell and i'm going to clock off and let you guys enjoy the rest of your week and i'll see you next time thanks for listening thanks for supporting the podcast have a great week take care of yourselves take care of each other and i will see you on the next one cheers guys
PodcastTranscript AI