Feb 4, 2010 Interview

Posted on February 4, 2010

An interview I just completed for a German Anarchist Zine:

What made you become an anarchist? Was there any special event or experience in your life?

I think most people are born anarchists and it’s up to state-sponsored schools and corporate media to drill it out of us. I just had the good luck to be a bit more stubborn then most and unwilling to accept stupid answers to obvious questions.

In your songs you rap about your view on social and political things as an anarchist. Do you think that works as some kind of education and propaganda for young people, listening to hip hop, who dont know anything of anarchism yet?

I hope so, but mostly it’s just me being me. Good hip hop is about real life and real situations. I’m a revolutionary so that’s what I make music about. I’ve gotten a lot of letters from people over the years saying that my music has helped them work through things and opened doors to ideas they wouldn’t have encountered otherwise and I’m always glad to get that kind of feedback but I’d keep doing what I do whether anyone listened to it or not. It’s cheaper then therapy and I need it to stay sane and work through the fear and uncertainty of living in a world on the brink of ecological and cultural annihilation.

Would you describe yourself as any specific kind of anarchist? Communist, socialist, pacifist, individualist? Or do you say fuck of, and pick the best out of all of those kinds of anarchism?

I started out calling myself an anarchosyndicalist and still identify strongly with parts of that school of thoght but in recent years I’ve gained an appreciation for mutualism and indigenism and feel that all three schools of thought have a lot to offer the world.

How do you get your writing and producing of music together with your everyday live, with wage-work an those things?

It’s not easy, Today was my first day off this week and I spent all morning doing volunteer work for one of the anarchist groups I support and all afternoon at my local community radio station doing a show. It’s 7pm now and I’m about to head off to band practice. You’ve got to be hungry for it to be a performer, you’ve got to need that moment on stage like a junkie needs drugs. Otherwise it’s way too easy to just let the tedium of wage slavery overwhelm everything else. Here’s part of a verse from a new song I wrote this week:

it’s cheaper then therapy, who needs a shrink
It’s like my fathers’ church or my granddad’s drink
and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks
a titanic nation, I’m'a watch it sink
I flow like glaciers, rise like steam
doin’ everything I can to live this dream
the music moves me, flows into me
like the song is alive and it’s speaking through me
and in this moment, all is perfection
and the everyday world is a pale reflection
I can’t ever stop, ya’ll don’t understand
Till they pry this mic from my cold dead hands

I need this music like i need my eyes
like plants need sun to photosynthesize
like the sea needs the moon to shift the tides
like bread needs yeast and heat to rise…

You say, your a celt, you show that with your „celtic anarchist logo“, do some kind of celtic-hip hop with your band… What does that mean to you, being a celt, and why is that so important for you?

This is where Indegenism comes into my analysis. Identity is the story that people tell themselves about who they are , where they come from, and their place in the world and for me that story revolves around the struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed, colonized and colonizer. Understanding my place in the world as the descendant of refugees displaced by rampaging imperialism is part of how I frame my opposition to capitalism, the state, and statist nationalism.

At least in europe (especcially in Germany), identifying with those early ancestors like the celts is often used to create an absurd national identity. In Germany, the neo-national-socialist movement refers to Arminius and the germanic tribes as an „ancestor of the german people“ to create their ethnic community („Volksgemeinschaft“). Because oft that experiences I wondered, that there are also anarchists refering to those early ancestors. Have you made any experiences with those racial and nationalist kinds of misuse?

The world has no shortage of idiots and nationalists and neo-nazi’s have got to be some of the worst. Every story has two sides and while there are certainly people who would use german history to justify a continuation of its worst tendancy there is also a long history of resistance in germany – and everywhere else for that matter. The german side of my fathers family counts it as a point of pride that there is a statue in the town they originally came from to one of our relatives who was murdered by the Nazi’s for his part in the underground anti-fascist resistance. Hearing his story I learned certain things as a child – that opposition to tyranny is a duty, that those who fall in the fight against that tyranny deserve our respect, and that it is better to stand in front of the tank and refuse to move then it is to stay safe on the sidelines, even if doing so means ones own death.

That’s the power of history. It’s what Utah Phillips used to call the “Long Memory” and is one of the most powerful weapons of the working class. Which is, of course, why history classes in public schools around the world tend to be so terrible and so focused on the history of emperors and generals – they want to replace our history with theirs. If we let them do that and gain control of the story we tell ourselves about who we are we’ve already lost.

How would you describe the situation of the anarchist movement in the USA? Are there many struggles, in which anarchists take part, do anarchists still have a relevance in american public? (Everything I more or less often hear about anarchism in the USA is about CrimethInc, and maybe a few ELF things…)

The Anarchist movement in the US is a fringe of a fringe, a tiny minority. We’re not without influence though, After Howard Zinn – a self described anarchist – died there were obituaries to him on many national television and radio programs and more then a few news articles as well. Noam Chomsky has more people asking him to speak then he could ever hope to accommodate. The problem is that in order to make these men acceptable the corporate media has stripped away the core vision of their politics – the anarchist ideal of a world without oppression or hierarchy. I think if mainstream america ever got a clear idea of what anarchism actually entails we would have a nation full of anarchists but the mass media has done an amazing job of clouding up the debate with all kinds of nonsense. It’s an uphill battle but one we can’t afford to stop fighting.

PS.: Were there any death threats after your „God is a lie“ video on youtube? If not, a version with the band would be nice, what great and true lyrics! Really like it!

A few but I’m used to that. My bandmates aren’t as radical as me in some respects and didn’t want to do a band version of the song so it’ll end up on my next solo album, whenever that gets done.

Another thing: In the near future, I’d like to make a little sampler with some international anarchist hip hop. I would sell it and give the money to our local group of the german Anarchist Syndicalist Youth in Muenster. asjmuenster.blogsport.de Our group has no own money for propaganda stuff and things like that.Can i take songs of you and Beltaine’s Fire for a sampler?

Go for it.

You’re administrating rapanarchists.net, right? I can send you some informations about other german anarchist rappers, like Chaoze One, Lotta C, Kurzer Prozess, Albino and some more. If youre interested, i can look some things up and write a few short texts about each one.

Sounds good!

This made me laugh

Posted on January 15, 2010

The Perfect High
by Shel Silverstein

There once was a boy named Gimme-Some-Roy… He was nothin’ like me or you, ’cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.

As a kid, he sat in the cellar…sniffing airplane glue. And then he smoked banana peels, when that was the thing to do. He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, he breathed helium on the sly, and his life became an endless search to find the perfect high.

But grass just made him wanna lay back and eat chocolate-chip pizza all night,
and the great things he wrote when he was stoned looked like shit in the morning light.
Speed made him wanna rap all day, reds laid him too far back, Cocaine-Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back.

He tried PCP, he tried THC, but they never quite did the trick. Poppers nearly blew his heart, mushrooms made him sick. Acid made him see the light, but he couldn’t remember it long. Hash was a little too weak, and smack was a lot too strong. Quaaludes made him stumble, booze just made him cry, Then he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.

Now, Baba Fats was a hermit cat…lived high up in Nepal, High on a craggy mountain top, up a sheer and icy wall. “Well, hell!” says Roy, “I’m a healthy boy, and I’ll crawl or climb or fly,
Till I find that guru who’ll give me the clue as to what’s the perfect high.”

So out and off goes Gimme-Some-Roy, to the land that knows no time, Up a trail no man could conquer, to a cliff no man could climb. For fourteen years he climbed that cliff…back down again he’d slide . . .
He’d sit and cry, then climb some more, pursuing the perfect high.

Grinding his teeth, coughing blood, aching and shaking and weak, Starving and sore, bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak. And his eyes blink red like a snow-blind wolf, and he snarls the snarl of a rat,
As there in repose, and wearing no clothes, sits the god-like Baba Fats.

“What’s happenin’, Fats?” says Roy with joy, “I’ve come to state my biz . . .
I hear you’re hip to the perfect trip… Please tell me what it is. “For you can see,” says Roy to he, “I’m about to die, So for my last ride, tell me, how can I achieve the perfect high?”

“Well, dog my cats!” says Baba Fats. “Another burned out soul, Who’s lookin’ for an alchemist to turn his trip to gold. It isn’t in a dealer’s stash, or on a druggist’s shelf… Son, if you would find the perfect high, find it in yourself.”

“Why, you jive mother-fucker!” says Roy, “I climbed through rain and sleet,
I froze three fingers off my hands, and four toes off my feet! I braved the lair of the polar bear, I’ve tasted the maggot’s kiss. Now, you tell me the high is in myself? What kinda shit is this?

My ears, before they froze off,” says Roy, “had heard all kindsa crap; But I didn’t climb for fourteen years to hear your sophomore rap. And I didn’t climb up here to hear that the high is on the natch, So you tell me where the real stuff is, or I’ll kill your guru ass!”

“Okay…okay,” says Baba Fats, “You’re forcin’ it outta me… There is a land beyond the sun that’s known as Zabolee. A wretched land of stone and sand, where snakes and buzzards scream, And in this devil’s garden blooms the mystic Tzutzu tree.

Now, once every ten years it blooms one flower, as white as the Key West sky,
And he who eats of the Tzutzu flower shall know the perfect high. For the rush comes on like a tidal wave…hits like the blazin’ sun. And the high? It lasts forever, and the down don’t never come.

But, Zabolee Land is ruled by a giant, who stands twelve cubits high, And with eyes of red in his hundred heads, he awaits the passer-by. And you must slay the red-eyed giant, and swim the river of slime, Where the mucous beasts await to feast on those who journey by. And if you slay the giant and beasts, and swim the slimy sea, There’s a blood-drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards the Tzutzu tree.”

“Well, to hell with your witches and giants,” says Roy, “To hell with the beasts of the sea–
Why, as long as the Tzutzu flower still blooms, hope still blooms for me.”
And with tears of joy in his sun-blind eyes, he slips the guru a five, And crawls back down the mountainside, pursuing the perfect high.

“Well, that is that,” says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone, Facing another thousand years of talking to God, alone. “Yes, Lord, it’s always the same…old men or bright-eyed youth… It’s always easier to sell ‘em some shit than it is to tell them the truth.”

Shel Silverstein

Werkin.

Posted on January 12, 2010

Yeah I know, it’s been a couple months.  Fuck it, what can i say?  I’ve been busy.  Unfortunately not busy with music but busy paying bills.  I moved to Vallejo, had my freelance web design business collapse, took a straight job, and I’ve been working 50+ hours a week ever since.   Between that and working on my new place (we just found out that several of the beams under our kitchen floor are rotten and need to be replaced) I haven’t really had time to do much with my music.    My band hasn’t even gotten together to practice in a month and a half, though that’s as much to do with other people being busy as it is me.

Basically, it’s getting to the point where if I can’t figure out a way to make at least part of my living off my music I’m going to need to walk away. Not that I’d stop rapping – that won’t happen till i’m dead and buried – but the whole recording / releasing / promoting thing takes a lot of time and energy and I just plain don’t have the resources to keep pouring money into it if I can’t do better then breaking even.  With luck there will be a new Beltaine’s Fire Album coming later this year, we had half of it written and recorded before life forced us to take an extended break, but from there I’ve honestly got no idea what the future holds.

Hope ya’ll are well and are making the most out of this new year,

lynx