The Lego People Unite and Defeat Lord Business! (Review)

By Peter Miller

My crusty side tells me “The Lego Movie” is just a 100 minute long commercial. My crusty side is right. It is a very successful commercial for LEGO that grossed $468,009,556 worldwide.

But The Lego Movie isn’t just a commercial. It's also a movie leftists can enjoy. I sat in the movie theatre with friends laughing, excited, and high on life when I watched the movie in theatres. I was the opposite of crusty.

The villain in the film is “Lord Business”, played by Will Ferrell. He’s a capitalist dictator who wants total control. He doesn’t want the ruled to be creative at all.

Fox News took note that a capitalist was the villain for this film. Business host Charles Payne said the film attacked big business, and Lord Business “looks a little bit like Mitt Romney.” Fox’s Monica Crowly even said “Hollywood has long been dominated by the far left, which is very anti-capitalist.” Payne worried the film was indoctrinating young children.

Musician blocked from preforming at 18th WFYS at Miami airport

Reincidentes album cover

Music, song and dance was a dynamic backdrop to the political discussions which took place this December in Quito, Ecuador at the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students.

All that partying spirit wasn't without the interference of imperialism however.

Singer and bassist Fernando Madina of the Spanish punk-rock band Reincidentes was detained at Miami airport en route to the festival. The group was supposed to play a headlining act at the opening ceremonies.

Instead, the lead singer vanished. It took over 48 hours for his family back at home to finally learn what of his arrest after they reported his disappearance to the Spanish National Police as nothing had been heard of his whereabouts, according to the Spanish-language version of Rollling Stone.

Madina claims airport immigration officials also told his band members he was not detained and had probably gone sightseeing.

In fact, the lead singer had been handcuffed and shuttled out of the airport with twenty other people, to the neighboring Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on the charge of "drunkenness and disturbing public order." Madina was held in a cell with no access to a phone or translation. Detained Saturday, it took until Monday morning for a judge via video conference to exonerate him of any wrongdoing leading to his release.
The experience was much more like an arrest than a detention, Madina told the Spanish newsite TerceraInformación, saying that while he was animated when talking on the airplane he was not drunk and had only had a few beers on the long flight.

The band had a similar experience in October 2010, when guitarist Juan Manuel Rodriguez was supposedly confused with a narco trafficker and detained without explanation on a flight transfer passing through Miami for two hours.

To the students

"To the Students" performed by David James Hudson and Lisa B. of Guelph Poetry Slam team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Montreal, Quebec on November 6, 2013 (c)David James Hudson 2013

Four facts about Solidarity Forever you might not know

Special Feature
Rebel Youth Magazine


It is billed as the greatest English-language labour anthem ever, perhaps second only to the Internationale. It has been translated into multiple languages and sung around the world. If you have been on strike, you've probably heard it, or sung it. Few rallies, large or small, in English-speaking Canada take place without it; and it is also common in Québec. Labour union meetings in Canada, the US and Australia sometimes end with it. The best and the worst labour and progressive choirs, folk singers, and raging grannies can all belt it out by heart.

The name of the song is Solidarity Forever -- but what do you really know about it?

Feature essay on youth culture and war

Peter Miller and Daniel Lyder

Tommy Smith and John Carlos

An oft-repeated opinion in the sports media is that sports and politics should absolutely never mix. If an athlete chooses to use his or her spotlight to voice or display a social or political opinion sports journalists, sports owners, and sports executives will often voice their disapproval.

One of the most famous examples of this is Tommy Smith and John Carlos. The two African American athletes at the 1968 Games were stripped of their medals for their famous Black Power raised fist salute, wearing black-gloves in civil rights solidarity.

More recently, at the summer Olympics in London, Damien Hooper, an aboriginal boxer from Australia, was threatened with expulsion by the Australian Olympic Committee for wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of an Aboriginal flag, while warming up in the ring before a fight. Hooper had broken the Olympic games policy preventing athletes from representing flags unapproved by corporate sponsors.

Fidel and Camilo Cienfuegos play baseball
as the team "Bearded ones"

Shut up and play

Yet there is an immense self-serving irony contained in the ‘shut up and play’ culture perpetuated by the media.  Sports are constantly used by right-wing corporate forces and the military to promote their own pro-war, aggressively nationalist and repressive agendas. Therefore, the truth is that sports journalists, owners, and sports executives actually believe that sports and progressive politics should absolutely never mix.

Iconic ESPN host “Big Game” Brent Musburger famously analyzed Smith and Carlos’ demonstration by saying at the time "Perhaps it's time twenty year-old athletes quit passing themselves off as social philosophers."

Musburger has never apologized for his remarks.  And the attitude hasn’t changed much since then.

Consider the incredible backlash against Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen last year for simply admitting that he ‘liked’ Fidel Castro. Guillen was forced to recant at length or lose his job and was suspended for five games.

NFL 'salute to serive'

Military cheerleading

Yet anyone who’s watched an NFL game or the recient Super Bowl could easily attest to the open and unquestioned platform for pro-military viewpoints: from troop displays during the national anthem, to fighter jets buzzing over the stadium, to the bizarre statements and subsequent “USA” chants throughout stadiums announcing the killing of Osama Bin Laden and his family.  Their official website proclaims that "supporting the military is part of the fabric of the NFL."

In fact, capitalist countries like Canada and the USA actively use the sports "business" to promote the military and imperialism.

Canadian professional sports franchises openly promote war in conjunction with the mass media and the government. While the old Winnipeg Jet's logos (from 1972–1996) featured a civilian airliner, the True North Inc. new design explicitly pays "homage" to the Air Force with a fighter jet.

The federal and Manitoba provincial governments contributed over 11 million dollars to the construction of a new arena for the Jets to play in, quite a unique form of advertising.

Cherry signing bombs

Don Cherry

Perhaps the most infamous hockey ‘analyst’ in Canada is Don Cherry who makes a $700 000 salary, paid from public money, and uses his airtime to promote xenophobia, anti-Quebec nationalism and war during Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. In 2010 Cherry signed bombs and went as far as actually firing a shell when he visited occupied Afghanistan.  He later received an honorary degree from the Royal Military college (although not without protest) for his work supporting the war.

Unlike what the Harper Conservative government and Don Cherry would have us believe, however, the war in Afghanistan is not about justice or women’s rights. As Yves Engler points out in his latest book, The Ugly Canadian, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has supported decrees from religious leaders in the country stating that women must be subordinate to men, and cannot be in public without their male partner or family member by their side.

This war, like all wars undertaken by the military industrial complex, has generated enormous profits for ‘defence’ corporations in Canada from the public purse.

The new Winnipeg Jets Logos

Case study: the war in Libya

Canada was ranked 6th in foreign military sales in 2009, according to the Federation of American Scientists Arms Sales Monitoring Project.

Perhaps then it is no surprise that the Winnipeg Jets’ new logo is a blue circle with a metallic grey silhouette of a McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet Fighter Jet above a red maple leaf.

This is the same plane used by the Canadian Forces to bomb Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya. In fact, the Winnipeg Jets military logo was revealed during Canada’s war in Libya.

Despite claims of humanitarian intervention or "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) which is often heard during the military cheerleading at sports events, the Libyan War was pursued for the benefit of big corporations and oil wealth. NATO simply used the Arab Spring to intervene and interfere with another country’s sovereignty.

Libya had bigger than average royalties on oil corporations. Its nationalized oil company interfered with profits for companies like Suncor, Canada’s largest energy corporation.  And the Libyan regime was an inconsistent ally of imperialism.

The US-led NATO alliance thus saw an opportunity to influence Libya’s uprising and actively supported the "Transitional National Council" to further increase profits, secure a geo-strategic military foothold in Africa and the Mediterranean, and push-back against the inroads of Chinese capital into Africa.

Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, officially commanded the NATO campaign signing off on every pre-selected bombing target.  15 Canadian Aircraft went on 15,000 missions and dropped at least 700 bombs.  On one occasion, a strike from NATO is alleged to have killed 47 civilians, and the total civilian death toll is estimated to be much higher.

Doctors Without Borders ended up pulling out of Libya, refusing to be complicit in the NATO mission and noting that they were actually treating many captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers who were tortured by rebels. (Gaddafi repeatedly called for a ceasefire, yet the NATO-backed rebels refused.)

Meanwhile, Don Cherry was busy praising the new Winnipeg Jet's logo.  "How could you do better than to honour the people who lay their lives down for us?" he told Sun News.

Canadian Forces Appreciation Night

Raptors Canadian Forces Night

Military cheerleading in Canada reaches beyond hockey and into sports like basketball as well.  On Saturday January 26 the Toronto Raptors held their 6th Canadian Forces Night at the Air Canada Centre. The Team and cheerleaders wore camouflage jerseys while pro-military programming aired during breaks throughout the game.

After the game, Raptors players, the coaching staff, and cheerleaders posed for a group picture with Canadian soldiers. Raptors and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment described the camouflage jersey and Canadian Forces Night as a “natural extension of the Raptors and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s long-standing support of Canada’s military”.

The Canadian Forces Night was used by the Canadian Military to advertise it’s growing "brand." The Canadian Government spent 353.6 million dollars on public relations for the military in 2010-2011.

Advertising the military targets Canadian youth with commercials on television, ads on campuses across Canada, as well as recruitment displays at sports and public events. When sports franchises further help promote the Canadian Military with nights like the Canadian Forces night, Canadian youth are pushed to fall into a trap, join the military and become cannon-fodder for imperialist wars.

Positively, groups like "Hockey Fans For Peace" are taking on commentators like Don Cherry and calling on the anti-war movement to become more active and visible on sports issues, and in general.

Maybe it is time to flyer future Raptors games that have Canadian Force Programming and tell sports fans of the working class why it is wrong to support war and militarism.

Make hockey not war

Canadian Imperialism Flexing its Military Muscle

The Raptors game and the militarization of sports is taking place at a time when the Harper Conservative government seems to be constantly flexing Canada's military muscle. Canadian troops are still on the ground in Afghanistan. The Canadian government is also getting involved in the French-led and US-backed occupation of Mali.

Canadians are also faced with the threat of our country following NATO to go to war in Syria and Iran. While Canadian-based corporations do not officially have any direct investments in the country, Iran has a tremendous amount of oil wealth.

American and Canadian imperialist interests do not like that Iran provides oil for China. Canada’s government is basically lying about nuclear weapons in Iran to try to sway public opinion and start another war allied beside Israel, America, and NATO.

Despite claims of a 'peace dividend' after the overturn of the Soviet Union and socialist countries, military spending is 2.3 times higher in Canada now than during the peak of the Cold war. The Harper Conservatives ever-increasing military budget is being prioritized over public healthcare, public education, affordable housing, universal childcare, and other important social services like publicly funded recreation and, perhaps ironically, non-commercial sports, culture and physical activities.

Cuba's womens national volleyball team

Sports for a world at peace

While the Canadian Government is setting up military bases around the world, it’s the youth who are faced with a future that, for the first time in generations, is predicted to be worse materially than our parents.

Let us show fellow sports fans that the future does not have to be this way. Instead of joining the armed forces, let us convince the youth to join social movements. Together we can stop another greedy war by hitting the streets!

Progressive-minded and peace-loving people must not shy away from pushing back against the pro-military agenda on the sports field, arena, or court. Sports are part of popular culture and it is important to use this venue to get anti-war and socially positive messages across.

An important beginning is to recognize when anti-establishment political opinions are voiced by athletes, and to support those to the best of our ability. It doesn’t help that some of the most powerful examples of this is given no attention in the media or quickly drowned out..

Together, we can also promote a radically different sports culture.

Speaking at the United Nations on resolutions in support of sports for peace and development, socialist Cuba said that sports should "undoubtedly strengthen solidarity and friendship among peoples" and that for Cuba, after the Cuban Revolution, "sports ceased to be exclusive and became a right for all the people."

International Association of Red Sports
and Gymnastics Associations, c. 1928

Cuba has also condemned "athleticism that was purely motivated by financial gains," and "the theft of sport talent from developing countries."  "Let us invest in projects for the sake of education, sport and health”, instead of on weapons Cuba has said.

Officially, much of the past rhetoric of international sports and the Olympics also opposed war, like the "Olympic Truce."  The World Festival of Youth and Students traditionally holds an anti-imperialist soccer match at each gathering.

It is time that sports in Canada promote fair play and cooperation, as well as friendship, internationalism, and solidarity -- not militarism, elitism, or crude consumerism. Recreation, leisure time, and democratic culture like sports culture are rights and not privileges. Its time to stand up, together, for these rights and sports for peace!

2012 Bye-Bye: Gabriel Nadeau-style

Generally hilarious, always outrageous, often scandalous and sometimes terrible, the Bye Bye is an annual Québécois New Year's Eve cultural icon. The sketch comedy special broadcast by Radio-Canada is virtually unknown outside of Quebec -- except when Anglophones over-react when the Bye Bye pokes fun at them -- but has been taking place since 1968 (with a pause of a few years between 98 and 06 and again in 09 because of scandal).

The first Bye Bye poked fun at Pierre Trudeau, the Vietnam War and reactionary elements of Quebec society; subsequent shows built a reputation on smart and funny comedy, not infrequently with a progressive edge. The show took a pause in the early 2000's and a new comedy crew took over in 2006. Sadly, some of these more recent Bye Bye's have been at best tasteless and at worst garbage. Facing widespread public criticism after 'black-face' skits, repeats of the kind of racist jokes that appear on mainstream US shows like Saturday Night Live, and especially a tasteless satire about child abuse, Radio Canada cancelled the show for a year.

But the Bye Bye lives on. The show remains a New Year's tradition for millions of kids growing up in Quebec. Many people can still remember some of the classic skits, giving the Bye Bye a strong following today.

This year took a turn that was seen as different and welcome by many, with a generally pro-student and anti-Charest Bye Bye. The video below is a short clip: a friendly mock of student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois featuring various characters of the strike like anarcho-panda and protesters in Banana costumes dancing to a re-mix of the hit track Oppan Gangnam Style by South Korean artist PSY (Park Jae-sang).

To give a sample, at one point the young super-star Quebec film-maker Xavier Dolan makes an appearance. Dolan, who convinced the Cannes International Film Festival to wear the red square, made head-lines during the student strike when he described Nadeau-Dubois as sexy. In the film checks-out the bicep of the actor playing the student leader.

Does it trivialize the student struggle or support it? What is the comment about democracy, and personality in the struggle? Comments are open.

Victor Jara: "With that same strength our collective fist / Will strike again some day."

According to the New York Times, eight retired army officers were charged this Friday with the murder of famous communist musician Víctor Jara.

Just days after a 1973 CIA-supported coup overthrew the democratically elected socialist coalition government of Salvador Allende with the brutual dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Jara was tortured and killed in a football stadium which had been turned into a detention centre.

The NYT reports:

Judge Miguel Vásquez charged two of the former officers, Pedro Barrientos and Hugo Sánchez, with committing the murder and six others as accomplices. Mr. Sánchez, a lieutenant colonel, was second in command at the stadium. Mr. Barrientos, a lieutenant from a Tejas Verdes army unit, currently lives in Deltona, a city southwest of Daytona Beach, Fla., and was interrogated by the F.B.I. earlier this year at the request of a Chilean court. Attempts to reach Mr. Barrientos for comment were unsuccessful; his two listed telephone numbers had been disconnected. Judge Vásquez issued an international arrest warrant against Mr. Barrientos through Interpol Santiago and ordered the arrest of the other seven, who were in Chile. Those charged as accomplices are Roberto Souper, Raúl Jofré, Edwin Dimter, Nelson Hasse, Luis Bethke and Jorge Smith. (...)  Judge Vásquez established that Mr. Jara was recognized by military officers, separated from the rest of the detainees and taken to the basement dressing rooms, which were being used to question prisoners. There, he was interrogated, beaten and tortured by several officers, according to the court.

Victor Jara grew up in a poor family near Santiago -- his father began working by the age of six. As a student in Catholic seminar Jara came in contact with the popular social struggles and movements of his times.

Jara became involved first in theatre and then folk music, inspired by the artistic and cultural vibrancy of contemporary Chile with progressive artists like Violeta Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui and the red poet Pablo Neruda. Jara became one of the leaders of the Nueva Canción (Spanish for ‘New Song’) movement – a movement based around “socially committed” music that takes a clear stand for freedom, against poverty, against imperialism and against human rights abuses.

Nueva Canción gave voice to the millions of peasants, workers and indigenous peoples of Latin America who were being crushed under the weight of US economic and political dominance.

Jara also joined the Communist Party of Chile, becoming an outspoken leftist in his country as well as an internationally famous artist. Like modern-day troubadour, he travelled across Latin America including Cuba, as well as Europe and the Soviet Union. Jara strongly supported the "Popular Unity" government of Allende, in which the Communist Party of Chile was an active participant. The social reforms enacted by the Allende government brought it friendship from the socialist world including Cuba and the USSR but the wrath of imperialism.

Soon after the election, the CIA stepped-up its work with ultra-right and neo-fascist forces inside Chile to overthrow the people's government. The CIA paid between $6.8 to $8 million USD to right-wing opposition groups to "create pressures, exploit weaknesses, magnify obstacles" against the elected government.  It is not well known but the Canadian government also supported the US actions against Allende’s Chile, like the pre-coup embargo attempting to destabilize the country.

(In a sad chapter of history, China under Mao's leadership actually lined-up with the CIA and actually recognized Pinochet's Chile after the coup).

As for Jara, he was quickly arrested in the early days of the fascist junta by the military -- captured, along with hundreds of students, teachers and staff members, at the Santiago Technical University where he was a professor and researcher.

The detainees were bused to Chile Stadium, since then renamed Víctor Jara Stadium, and held in the bleachers for long days with thousands of other prisoners, in the custody of army units brought in from various parts of the country.

The soldiers tortured and electrocuted him, breaking his wrists and the bones of his musicians hands. They then reportedly taunted him to play the guitar. Instead, Jara played the anthem of the Allende's coalition -- Venceremos or We Will Win. In this spirit of resistance, Jara wrote his very last song while held in the stadium:

We are five thousand
Confined in this little part of town
We are five thousand
How many of us are there throughout the country?
Such a large portion of humanity
With hunger, cold, horror and pain
Six among us have already been lost
And have joined the stars in the sky.
One killed, another beaten
As I never imagined a human being
could be beaten
The other four just wanted to put an end
To their fears
One by jumping down to his death
The other smashing his head against a wall
But all of them
Looking straight into the eyes of death.
We are ten thousand hands
That can no longer work
How many of us are there
Throughout the country?
The blood shed by our comrade President
Has more power than bombs and machine guns
With that same strength our collective fist
Will strike again some day.
Song, How imperfect you are!
When I most need to sing, I cannot
I cannot because I am still alive
I cannot because I am dying
It terrifies me to find myself
Lost in infinite moments
On which silence and shouts
Are the objectives of my song
What I now see, I have never seen
What I feel and what I have felt
Will make the moment spring again.

On 16 September, Victor Jara was machine-gunned to death. His body, and four other victims, were later found dumped near a railroad track outside a cemetery (one of the victims remains unidentified).

According to the autopsy report, he had been shot 44 times.

The special military unit who massacred Jara and many other political activists became known as the "Caravan of Death" and flew across the country in helicopters executing trade unionists, leftists and members of the Communist Party of Chile, and many other progressives like liberation theology priests.  More than 3,000 people were killed or went missing during the US-supported military dictatorship in Chile, from 1973 to 1990.

(While the Canadian government welcomed tens of thousands of families fleeing socialist governments from Europe and South-East Asia, only two thousand political prisoners were accepted from Chile. You can read more about that story in an review we ran earlier in the year, here.)

While Jara's bones may now be dust, his memory is alive in well in the hearts and minds of the Chilean people and progressives around the world. An official investigation into Victor Jara's death began in 2008 when army conscript José Paredes Marquez was charged with the killing.  In 2009 his remains were reburied in a massive public funeral.

Rebel Youth notes that article has combined reports previously published on the New York Times, The Gaurdian, Wikipedia, Beatknowledge.org and other websites.

Anti-Flag – The General Strike

Pittsburgh political punks Anti-Flag have released their ninth full length album The General Strike on independent label SideOneDummy.

True to form the new album’s lyrics focus on the political issues of the day. The opening track, Controlled Opposition, is fast, aggressive, and to the point; facts that will be well received by some long time Anti-Flag fans that may have been less enthusiastic about the more toned-down nature of some recent albums.

The rest of the album doesn’t disappoint either. Some tracks are slower and more melodic but all of them are solid both politically and musically.

Highlights include 1915, a song about union organizer Joe Hill, The Ranks of the Masses Rising, about the Arab Spring and the importance of getting active politically, I Don’t Wanna, and This is the New Sound.

The General Strike is arguably Anti-Flag’s best album since 2001’s Underground Network. Well worth a listen for any fan of Anti-Flag or political punk rock. Check it out at www.anti-flag.com

The Class Assassins – Equalize X Distort The Studio 3 Sessions

The Class Assassins – Equalize X Distort

In November, 2011, punk rockers The Class Assassins recorded an eight song set live in studio at CIUT FM in Toronto. Now the tracks are available as Equalize X Distort, The Studio 3 Sessions.

The album contains six renditions of Class Assassins tracks from previous albums, and two great covers; Breaking the Law by Judas Priest and Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Included amongst the original Class Assassins tracks is the exceptionally catchy Treason, from the recently released The Treason 45 EP.

The great thing about this album is that the tracks are presented in their raw form without any fancy studio wizardry. This accomplishes two things. First, the album feels real and gritty, and preserves the classic Class Assassins sound. Second, it shows just how talented this band really is since it sounds pretty clear from the first track that all these guys need to kick ass is their instruments, and a spot to play them in.

If you are already a fan of The Class Assassins this is a must hear, but if you don’t know them yet this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Apparently only 100 copies are being released on CD, but the album is also available as a digital download on the bands Bandcamp page.

The Class Assassins – The Treason 45

Toronto streetpunks The Class Assassins have followed up their brilliant 2010 full length You’ve Got It All Wrong with a new EP titled The Treason 45. The release includes two new tracks on 7” vinyl.

Side A, Treason, blends the bands classic stripped down punk rock sound with a heavy back beat to produce a song that is legitimately catchy and memorable. I received the album a day ago and have probably heard this song a dozen times since.

The B Side is a song titled Start Again which is more reminiscent of You’ve Got It All Wrong. It’s a straight forward punk rock anthem expertly crafted to incite the listener to sing along and throw back a pint for the working class.

The Treason 45 only has one problem; it leaves the listener wanting more, and that’s a quality problem to have. One thing’s for sure, I’ll be looking forward to the next full length.

Check The Class Assassins out and order The Treason 45 at Rebel Time Records.

Sandino Primera on Venezuela

Ali Primera was a great heroic Venezuelan folk musician who is remembered as a voice of the poor and oppressed and a national hero of the country. Below is an interesting interview with his son, Sandino Primera. Although the interviewer does not mention it, Ali Primera was a long-time member of the Venezuela Communist Party (PCV). The Party and progressive Venezuelan's remember Ali Primera with the March of the Red Carnations (see photos below).

The Nightwatchman: Union Town

The Rebel Spell – It’s a Beautiful Future

It’s a Beautiful Future is the third full-length album by Vancouver punks The Rebel Spell. The highly anticipated album won’t disappoint fans of the band, which has built an increasingly known and loved name for itself in the punk scene since 2003.

The album takes on the threat posed to our future by the capitalist system with its environmental destruction, war, and repression. Its title track explores a futuristic dystopia characterized by oppression, hunger, and environmental apocalypse. “It Can’t Just Be Me” adds a piano to the equation while decrying a world under the watchful eye of big brother.

But “Uncontrollable”, a powerful song which introduces a violin to The Rebel Spell’s sound, deals with the unbreakable will of the people to struggle and win against all odds, and “Feel the Same” is a call to action against the injustices perpetrated by the powerful. The last track on the album, “The World Turned Upside Down” talks about the Diggers, English agrarian socialists who were active during the 1600’s before being violently crushed. While it is a cover of an English folk song written in 1643, it can also be seen as a parting rallying cry to turn today’s world, with all its injustices, upside down.

These are only a few of the twelve tracks featured on It’s a Beautiful Future, but there’s no filler here. Every one of them has something to say, and says it in the form of powerful, rousing, sing-a-long punk rock. The future may be bleak or beautiful, but what will define it will be the struggle of the people for a better world.

Rise Up

Cypress Hill feat. Tom Morello.

This Land is Our Land

Anti-Flag and the Nightwatchman perform Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Our Land"

Cambridge: This is not a victory

Cambridge released their second full length album this summer on Rebel Time Records. The Vancouver bands new release, titled This is Not a Victory, contains ten tracks of fast-paced, melodic, and politically-charged punk rock.

Known for their distinct and complex sound, Cambridge carries forward their own brand of fiery hardcore anthems in This is Not a Victory, while assaulting injustice at every turn. The albums lyrics deal with issues such as torture, war, democracy, corporate greed, and the environmental disaster that is the Albertan tar sands. Pretty heavy stuff. Yet, anyone who has seen Cambridge live can attest that they appear to have a hell of a lot of fun railing against such injustices and, hopefully, inspiring action through their chosen medium, and this comes across in their music.

This is Not a Victory is a reminder that punk rock and resistance go together, and that the notion that all punk sounds the same is a fallacy which is ridiculous to the extreme. Her it streaming online now here.

Favourite tracks: Kubark, Neverending Story, Middle of Nowhere.

The Class Assassins: You've Got It All Wrong (2010)

The Class Assassins present another album of "songs to sing with a pint glass in one hands and a fist in the air." Several years after their last album, The Class Assassins still appear on top of their game with their new album, You've Got It All Wrong.

You've Got It All Wrong is made up of 13 shout-along working-class punk anthems, each dripping with fighting spirit. Empty Dollar chronicles in brief the life of the wage slave, fighting to get by. Stop the World criticizes the rapid depletion of the world resources, the path towards extinction being charted by those who pillage the planet unreservedly and promote a culture of rapid consumerism. A Generation Robbed takes on feelings that without change, there is no future for the younger generations.

To sum up, You've Got It All Wrong's got it all right. Favourite tracks include Empty Dollar, Outside Looking In, Stop the World, and A Generation Robbed.

Check out the Class Assassins here.

The Rebel Spell: hastily selected songs from the impending full length It's a Beautiful Future (2010)

At a local punk rock show last week I picked up hastily selected songs from the impending full length It's a Beautiful Future, a four song disc from Vancouver punks The Rebel Spell. As usual, these samplings from the upcoming new album are powerful, fast, political, catchy, and contain the signature Rebel Spell sound that no other band quite seems to have.

The disc starts off with All we want is to be left alone, a song that seems to be attacking the corporate culture of consumerism and its definitions of self worth based on what you own, how you look, and how well you fit the mold defined by TV and the glossy magazine pages.

The sonorous Uncontrollable brings a new dimension of sound to The Rebel Spell in the way that They Know did on Five Songs About Freedom. In this case, the new sound appears to be a fiddle, and makes for a really awesome sounding track.

Feel the Same is probably the catchiest new track. It's a reminder that you are never alone in fighting oppression, that others around the world are fighting to in numerous ways and against numerous injustices.

Finally, No Thanks, takes on phony liberators of all sorts. It's hard to hear this song without thinking of the occupations of Iraq ("Operation Iraqi Liberation"), and of Afghanistan, where sadly Canadian soldier remain engaged in an unjust, imperialist, aggression under the guise of promoting freedom and democracy.

If these "hastily selected" tracks are representative of The Future is Beautiful then fans of The Rebel Spell have reason to be excited about its impending release. If more of us take up the rallying cries of bands like The Rebel Spell and fight for it, maybe we will have cause to be excited about a future which could be beautiful as well.

Check out The Rebel Spell here.

Broadcast Zero: Some concerns regarding this revolt (2010)

Broadcast Zero's new album, Some concerns regarding this revolt, comes just a year and a half after their amazing debut album Yesterday you could change the world. These Ontario punks dish out another dose of hard hitting, politically charged, punk rock anthems in 16 tracks.

Some concerns has a faster, angrier sound to it, while still retaining Broadcast Zero's particular sound and holding on to their catchy sing-along style. The album focuses on themes of selling-out, betrayal, the media, bigotry, political activism, and more.

Fear Culture discusses how the corporate media attempts to keep the populace in a state of constant subduing fear. The fast and loud Nowhere to Go condemns the dead end capitalist system which leads many youth to take up military service out of desperation. Personal Overload talks about the stresses and tribulations of getting by in this fucked up system. The Enemy, slows things down for a crushing polemic about oppression cloaked as freedom.

Favourite tracks include Demons, Fear Culture, Battle On, It Dies With You.

Check our Broadcast Zero on Myspace here.

Bridle Path Halloween: The horror!

Reprinted from The Toronto Star
November 01, 2009
Rosie DiManno

Bridal Path is a bougie hood in Toronto - RY Eds.


Boo.

Hoo.

And thanks for nothing. Which is just about what two of my nearest and dearest DiMannos got door-to-door last night – one measly chocolate mint wafer, handed over by an apologetic maid: "Sorry but you're the first trick-or-treaters we've ever had here."

Or, as my nephew put it succinctly: "This sucks."

Chimed in my niece: "The worst Halloween ever."

Yes, we'd just entered the Twilight Zone of ... The Bridle Path.

It was with trepidation that we approached the Monster Houses: Gothic, Tudor and Greco-Roman piles of brick.

Here, behind wrought-iron gates, are the ghouls of high finance, the fiends of power, the boogiemen of Canada's upper-uppest establishment; a coven of the moneyed, privileged, butlered and Brazilian-balled.

On this most sacred, if pagan, holiday on a child's calendar, the hoi-polloi DiMannos, junior edition – Master Joshua and Mistress Juliet, aged 11 and 10 – ventured across class boundaries as trick `n' treat supplicants at some of Toronto's toniest addresses.

Haunted, as it turns out, either inhabited only by domestic staff – is everybody Palm Springing it? – or in-situ residents peering suspiciously from behind the drapes, but definitely not answering the bell.

A short cut to bonbon lucre, some too-clever-by-half Star editor had enthused, cackling, an Invasion of the Sugar Snatchers upon the enclave of the A-list swank, the palazzos of the swank, on the one night when upstarts wouldn't be directed to the delivery entrance.

These may be perilous times for titans of industry and Bay Street boffos, portfolios plundered by economic upheaval.

But surely the money-bag brigade wouldn't skimp on Halloween largesse, pull down the blinds, turn off the lights and make like nobody's home.

Indeed they did, even at manors all dressed up for the occasion, with pumpkins on the hearth and scarecrows affixed to the front facades, Halloween chic à la House & Garden.

"Trick or treat," the kids chirped into driveway speaker-phones, on the rare occasions they received a response.

Then click and silence. On one occasion, a burst of laughter and: "Nobody home."

Boldly we trespassed on estates where the gates were open, right up to front doors with oversized knockers and organ-pipe ding-dong bells, loot bags dangling from outstretched arms: Candy alms for the kids!

On this particular evening of shenanigans, the little DiMannos were resurrected as She-Devil and Emperor of Evil – not to be confused with sca-a-a-ry couple Barbara Amiel and Baron Black.

Of course, he's not home, temporarily dungeoned in a U.S. penitentiary, self-proclaimed victim of an eat-the-rich hysteria south of the border.

But the serial bride chatelaine appears not to be in residence either, their mansion on Park Lane Circle spookily shuttered, only a dog snarling on the grounds. Moving along to High Point, houses deeply recessed from the street, protected by topiary and statuary – Edward Scissorhands landscaping – we search vainly for a joint that looks remotely inviting. "Ooh," whispers Juliet, pointing at a ridiculously ornate construct of columns and pillars. "Is that the White House?"

"Forget it," says Joshua. "See, there's a camera in the bushes. They know we're here, but they're just pretending not to be home." He pulls a face at the little red light.

One wonders, where do the children of the wealthy – the little trust funds – go to trick and treat? Not around here apparently, not a costumed kid to be seen on these winding roads.

Maybe they go to Parkdale and Cabbagetown, dressed as the working poor.

Nobody here but pikers and meanies, folks who'd begrudge a youngster a licorice swirl or a pack of M & Ms – which is maybe how they got so filthy loaded in the first place.

After 90 minutes of trudging through some of the country's poshest real estate, empty bags in hand, we give up.

"Let's go back to Toronto," says Juliet. "Maybe the real people haven't run out of candy yet."

Joshua: "We should never have come here. Worst. Halloween. Ever."