The Start of the Rage Revolution
We witnessed it start.
As Cedric of At The Drive-In once said, a single spark can start a spectral fire. In the final quarter of 2009, husband and wife Jon and Tracey Morter were the spark of what could be the next great DIY revolution when they started the facebook campaign to make Killing In The Name by Rage Against the Machine the coveted christmas no 1.
In the most viral of manners, the song sold about half a million units, roughly 50k more than Joe McEldry and the X Factor single, The Climb. The UK music monopoly was toppled. Forget the debates on the shared label Sony BMG - what happened is 500,000 people in our country stood up and voted for integrity. That single spot on the chart represents the musical (and therefore cultural) trends in our country, much like the twitter trends representing the consensus of its global user base.
So really, the top trend in the UK right now is revolution.
What should happen now? And how can the new, open-source punk revolution be achieved?
- Focus & co-ordinate - this is a wave that could die if we don’t stand up and ride it. Right now, the first people with the power to unify then encourage our legion are Jon and Tracey. They have the biggest mailing list of people who specifically want an independent establishment to take charge of UK culture, and the ear of the press. If they are prepared to step up to the megaphone, the snowball will roll. If they don’t, I fear the spectral fire will die on the match, and I will run out of metaphors.
- Set our goals - what do we want to achieve in the long term? How can we work towards this in the short term? Here’s my suggestion: Stimulate the independent creative culture to unprecedented levels, and leave it in a sustainable state. Make the UK the inspiration for artists in other nations. How? Read on.
- Assign roles - we need community leaders to co-ordinate the national microcosms. These need to be people directly involved with their creative communities, in a position to personally propagate information and guidance, and to ‘recruit’ for the cause. This could be in your counties or online. We also need experts to act in professional roles - good press releases, web design, accounting - these kind of things will make a difference in the long run. If we can work like ‘the machine’ then we can compete with it. You have to be inside a room to smash it up.
- Develop creative infrastructure - I run a free community recording studio for Wiltshire Council. The creative opportunities teenagers are getting here are really incredible. If this kind of facility was available to all teenagers, we would be able to sit back and watch a revolution grow all by itself. This is about more than music though - what were punks doing back in the day? Photocopying their own magazines, screen-printing their own t-shirts and artwork, putting on gigs… we should encourage all of this, and make the tools to do these things easily available. Either a series of DIY web guides (there a lots already, but let’s get them in one place right next to our mission statement) or physically buy the equipment and distribute them to youth centres. However, to do this kind of thing, we need to…
- Raise funds - perhaps even register a charity. We’re in a capitalist society, and if we can raise money to support the cause, it increases it’s chances of survival. Financial goals for things like a screen printing factory, for teenagers to send their designs and get pressed for free, would actually be huge. You could put a quality recording studio in each major city. Hell, with donations this could become the biggest independent record label in the country if we wanted. What about a wage for people like Jon and Tracey?
- Always succeed - This has to be done right. If RATM got to number 2, there would be nothing to win the hearts and minds of our country. We must do everything right, first time, and with temerity.
- DO IT - Ian MacKaye of punk rock fame put this best:
“Words are never enough. We can talk all we want, we can plan all we want, we can project, talk and talk and talk. But we can’t f**king do anything until we do it!” - Ian MacKaye
Hip-hop had graffiti. Punk had screen printing. We have the internet.
A single spark can start a spectral fire…
————
Add your comments below. Update: The comments aren’t working! Hopefully Disqus can help, but I would love to hear your comments on twitter @TomDavenport
Please re-blog this, send a link, mention it on facebook, anything - you are an agent for the cause, and as with the RATM campaign, the message is best distributed virally. Tell as many people as possible, and get them to tell several more.
-->
Recent comments