Are you fed the f*ck up? No? Well you should be! What with rich asshole robber barons on Wall Street clandestinely running the country while growing richer by the second, and extra-chromosome regressive right-wingers all up in our business while braying endlessly about “smaller government,” and giant, soulless corporations basically bending over to take a sh*t in the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink, the goddamn torch and pitchfork business should be THRIVING in America right about now. But it isn’t, because we’re a bunch of complacent, letharic f*cks. Maybe what the people of this increasingly flawed country need are some good ole protest songs to light a fire under their fat asses? And writer/director/Funny or Die honcho Adam McKay wants to do something about it!
Music is an entertainment slash art form that doesn’t suffer B.S. well. Sure you can sing songs about benign subjects like having a crush or wanting a Benz but try and sing a song about how the Koch Brothers need more tax breaks or how teacher’s unions are overpaid and it’s going to sound really, really F’d up. But other than Green Day we haven’t had a lot of protest music over the past few decades. Sure Rage Against the Machine was amazing and Neil Young had his say about Bush, but I’m always amazed how even small local bands stay away from the fact that our country is being ripped off, polarized and lied to by huge corporations that don’t pay taxes and weirdo billionaires who inherited all their money.
I can’t exactly say why there’s not much protest music to speak off. And I know there are acts out there still putting a message in their music. Maybe it’s Clear Channel’s ownership of so many radio stations. Or maybe it’s iTunes and Apple being a company that makes most of their stuff in China. Or maybe it’s because the outrage is just starting to really spark in the Midwest with all those insane Governors attacking the middle and lower classes.
I asked this question enough that finally some musician friends of mine in Austin, Texas (the home of music as far as I’m concerned) called my bluff and said, “If you write the lyrics we’ll record the songs.” So we did. The band is called English Teeth (Kevin Hoetger, Kevin McKinney, and Kyle Crusham). They smoke live if you haven’t seen them. We recorded for four days in Austin and it was a blast. And just like that we were ready to release our EP of protest music.
But Kevin, Kyle and I realized we didn’t want to be anywhere near the final word on this. We wanted other people to do their own songs. We wanted people to cover our songs or remix them. We wanted all kinds of voices. And we didn’t want to rely on corporate radio stations or MTV or iTunes. So we decided to create this project: Public Domain Protest Song.
This is the site which launches today.
The songs are completely free. No strings attached. But more importantly we want your songs and raps. We also want you to take one of our songs on this site and re-record it, re-write it, mash it up, hack it to bits, tear it apart, then put it back together again. Click the button to submit and we’ll post them. The songs can be about anything: local issues, national, international, whatever. We don’t care. We just want music about what’s going on. If you’re in a band and you cover one of our songs, send it to us. If you play a cover of “Which Side Are you On Boy?” we’ll post that too.
We want to support the songs that will be played at rallies, punk or folk shows, rap concerts and on iPods for the next ten years. We want the God Save the Queen or the Maggie’s Farm of our times. We know it’s out there.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and make some damn protest music! Like this…