We in the Overpass Light Brigade, and Overpass Light Brigade - Chicago were thrilled to learn that musician and Oakland activist Boots Riley thought it would be cool if we took a message on stage at his Chicago concert last Friday evening. We're huge fans of the music that Boots and his band, The Coup, have been putting out for years, and they just keep getting better and better. But deeper still, Boots is a tireless organizer, an activist who was very visible during Occupy Oakland, a very articulate speaker about the role of art and music in promoting social justice, and a generous supporter of local and regional radical resistance movements.
After much deliberation and discussion with our activist friends in Chicago regarding the message, the unknowns such as timing, stage size, whether we could get on stage, whether the folks at the door would let us in, whether it was a ridiculous idea, we did what OLB always does: packed our letters and hit the road, heading out for the trip from Milwaukee to Chicago. The club, Reggies, was instantly cool with us, which was a relief, and Boots was right at the door when we arrived, hanging out and talking with Occupy Rogers Park activist Kelly Hayes, who helped organize the event. I introduced myself as one of the co-founders of the Overpass Light Brigade. "I know who you are..." he said. I asked him when we should take the message onstage. "Whenever you get the feeling; whenever it takes you, man!" I thought this was pretty great, and we decided that we'd all get an unruly group of Holders of the Lights together near the right of the stage, as soon as the song "Guillotine" began.
Reggie’s was packed for the show, which featured Environmental Encroachment (a wonderful punk marching band), Agents of Change (powerful punk political rap), and Phillip Morris (an amazing and poetic and enigmatic rapper from Minnesota)… all the bands were great, and all were politically motivated and aware, and they discussed, in and between songs, the conviction last week in Chicago of the NATO3, and the sweeping militarization and surveilling power of our emergent security state, and the need to organize against the excesses of a corrupt system.
Then, The Coup came on. I know it is difficult to convey the energy of a concert that you are not there to see, or even cross the taste divides that flame snotty position statements about whole tracts of genre real estate from Facebook to ambient coffeehouse oratory, but suffice it to say that they brought down the house. At the designated song, a mob of folks came over wanting to hold letters. I had been worried that we would have to dragoon unwilling "volunteers," but I should know better by now - our fellow organizers in Chicago had gotten a whole crew together, people who had often gone out into the streets for direct action, as well as major Coup fans. I had to slow people down so they would let me turn on the letters. I had directed a really outgoing but easy-going friend from Milwaukee to take the first letter in order to cut a path through the crowd in front of the stage, and the Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago activists followed the flow. They made their way into a side room. I could see them milling about, trying to figure out the backwards order of spelling ambulatory letters marching left to right. That is more complicated than you might think when you are trying to do it in real space and short time. They did it! They got on the claustrophobic stage, rocked the song, and the crowd went wild.
I love it when people self organize. It is a great pleasure to set this stuff up and sit back and watch it happen, making its own demands, never being what you expect, and always being better, because "being" is the key to the qualifier.
The Coup finished the song, OLB left the stage, six amazing numbers later the concert ended. We got back to Milwaukee at 4:00 in the morning. I think about this stuff quite a lot; about what we are trying to do, what we are actually doing, what we aspire to do. We muddle along an unexpected and intuitive path, art no different than life. We hook up temporarily with allies like Boots, who is making music coming from the same place of heart and soul as Pete Seeger, as Rage Against the Machine, as The Clash, as what Dylan used to do, as countless other bands who not only sing songs to adoring crowds, but try to motivate individuals to engage, resist, defy, disrupt: to shift an inchoate urge towards rebellion into a more conscious urge to organize.
Of course, if cultural resistance was the key to political changes, we'd be living in a very different world, as the Left and Far Left have a lock on creative inspiration. Even wankers like Paul Ryan (R, Kochsconsin) confess their love of Rage Against the Machine, while Chris Christie gets warm and runny dreaming of drinking beer with The Boss. Yes, if the art of activism won electoral battles, we wouldn't be worrying over oil pipelines, wouldn't be cutting school lunch programs, and wouldn't be handing the keys to the country over to sociopathic criminals.
But on the other hand, we don't know what the world would look like without the efforts of the singers, the songwriters, the poets, the artists, the clown armies, the projection squads, the street performers, the pranksters, the guerrilla gardeners, the sidewalk chalkers, and yes, the Holders of the Lights.
Because, after all...
They got the TV, we got the truth
They own the judges and we got the proof
We got hella people, they got helicopters
They got the bombs and we got the, we got the...
We got the guillotine, you better run!
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Video by Arthur Kohl-Riggs
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