(idm) want politicks? try Consolidated!

From BigKumquat
Sent Tue, May 11th 1999, 20:08

<< those disgressions aside, what to do as far as political music goes? >>

Consolidated made a distinct effort to produce intensely political 
groove-oriented music in the early nineties.

Basically, their political slant can be described as far-left radical-vegan, 
anti-patriarchal and pro-feminist (if you'll permit the hyphens).

My favorite Consolidated tracks use cut-and-paste sampling to make a 
political point by grabbing fragments of dialogue, sometimes from the 
enemy...using re-contextualization to make someone look foolish, which 
admitedly isn't totally fair, but can be great fun.  

Remember that wave of trax that sampled George Bush?  Consolidated's "Our 
Leader" from the "friendly fa$cism" album is an excellent example.  Clinton 
just doesn't get sampled as much.  Does anyone know of any good 
Clinton-sampling trax?

I saw Consolidated live at the old Limelight in NYC (version 1.0, where you 
could walk down the hall to the bathroom and tweaked-out raver kidz would ask 
if you had any angel dust).  A somewhat sparse crowd (for that venue) watched 
curiosly as Consolidated's grooves and raps were backed by instense video 
footage, like during "The Sexual Politics of Meat" when they showed insanely 
grim animal slaughterhouse footage.  Nothin' gets the house rocking like 
cattle dismember flicks!  (please use sarcasm detector to scan the previous 
remark)

They also had this idea where they would pass the mic around to the crowd, 
and let people make political statements.  At the show I saw, folks couldn't 
come up with anything much more articulate than "Brooklyn in da house!"

So, it can be difficult to pull off politically-themed music in a live 
setting...at many party nights, I think the crowd wants to rock out more than 
be preached to.  But I support the occasional attempt, particularly 
sample-driven fun.

- Fred Church
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