Punk Rock and Revolution- A Message to Persons Unknown – Margaret Killjoy

‘A revolution cannot be one thing for one group of people. It’s got to be woven together with many strands’.

by Margaret Killjoy at BirdsBeforetheStorm / Substack 11 comments on 23rd Feb 2025 via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-G82 Telegram https://t.me/thefreeonline/2364

When I was nineteen, I spent awhile squatting in the suburbs of Baltimore, in a town called Towson (now famous as the birthplace of Luigi). This isn’t where I’m from… I had met some crustpunks in philly and started traveling with them.

We wound up in Towson, living in abandoned buildings or crawl spaces or bushes. We organized against war and we dumpstered and we shoplifted and we got run off by the cops several times a day.

You Do Not Flee a Storm- . or: morale as a terrain of struggle

There’s this moment I remember clearly, despite the large quantity of malt liquor I’d likely consumed: I remember being in a basement in Baltimore itself, probably one of the Food Not Bombs houses, while punk bands played.

Everyone was wearing all black with white-ink patches on their clothes, sewn together with dental floss. Floor joists were perilously perched above our heads. We did ourselves some permanent hearing damage in that basement.

The punk band had two singers, both women. It was called 2AM Revolution. During the chorus, everyone sang along as the singer screamed about how if she saw a Nazi she would “break my fucking 40 on his motherfucking face!”

And just like that, in that basement screaming along, I understood punk.

Because the thing is, those of us in that basement meant what we said about revolution. Our venues were collective houses that doubled as mutual aid kitchens. The singers of the band marched alongside us at antiwar and alterglobalization protests.

When a bus load of Nazis passed through town, the local punks working with Anti-Racist Action partnered with local gangs to ambush the fascists, smashing out the bus windows, pepperspraying inside, and jumping every nazi as they emerged.

Then everyone disappeared back through the alleys into the Maryland night.

A car full of antifascists showed up late and were carted off to jail, and the punk scene raised the money for their criminal defense. We meant what we said in our lyrics.

But one band and their fans isn’t a movement.

ALBUM REVIEW: CIARAN MURPHY – The Land That Connolly Warned Us Of (2024)

Over a decade since he was last active Irish singer-songwriter Ciaran Murphy is back with an 11-track album of incendiary acoustic Folk with a Punk as hell attitude. London Celtic Punk Sean Creegan reviews the new release.

January 9, 2025 Written by: London Celtic Punks from thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FvB Telegram https://t.me/thefreeonline

I must admit to being very happy on hearing that Ciaran Murphy or Pip as he’s known to many had decided to pick up the guitar again and pen some new material after a long period of time off in the musical world.

I was even happier to then be asked to review the new album for the London Celtic Punks website.

Since we had last heard from Ciaran he told us he had genuinely planned to never write or record again and focus instead on academia and to his credit he had since gained degrees, masters degrees, started a PHD (in his own words) realised it was “utterly fucking useless in the long run and stopped”.

Living as he does in the six counties Ciaran had seen the political situation become exactly what James Connolly had warned us about when he said “unless you set about the establishment of a Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain… England will still rule you”.

“Songs started coming back into my head because of pure frustration at seeing republicanism being drawn so far into that trap. And I just got the guitar out to scratch an itch tbh”.

The eleven track album which has haunting tin whistle, bodhran, guitar and if I’m not mistaken banjo throughout the songs tackles the kind of subject matter you would expect from Ciaran all sung with passion and heart.

Two tracks from Pips previous albums are reworked for this album namely ‘Death With Walls’ and ‘For God And Ulster’. They fit in well and sit alongside the new tracks admirably.

LONDON CELTIC PUNKS WEB-ZINE

The clearest example of this ideological corruption is nationalism’s ongoing acceptance of ‘Internment By Remand’, the imprisonment of republican political activists using sham ‘evidence’ from Mi5 and the PSNI, which everyone knows will not be accepted at any upcoming trial but is used to take men and women off the streets and keep them on remand for 2 – 4 years at a time.

It’s believed that over 11,000 days have been lost by victims of this tactic with constitutional nationalism turning a blind.

The song was the first single from the album released on August 9th, the date of the original internment operations of 1971.

“Free Staters. I’m taking Ireland for myself. Never mind nobody else”

A version of Shane MacGowans ‘The Dunes’ is included and sounds great.

It’s definitely leaning more towards a ballad’s type album but my favourite track ‘Free Staters’ is a bit more up tempo.

All in all Pip has made another thought provoking record in his own inimitable style that indeed tells us of the land that Connolly warned us of.

Rev Archibald Warwick was hung in front of his congregation following the 1798 rebellion.

Today nothing exists to remember his sacrifice, either in his home parish of Kirkubbin or beyond except this wonderful tribute from Ciaran.

We welcome Ciaran back and hope to see him belt these tunes out in the near future at a London Celtic Punks gig.

Last word to Ciaran and why he’s back and whatever we imagined to be brave is no comparison to what he’s doing… and doing so well.

The so called ‘Rebel’ music scene here doesn’t want to touch on these issues (Maghaberry, PSNI oppression, Craigavon 2 etc) because singers are afraid of not being asked to play certain bars, festivals etc which made it all the more urgent to start writing again so these topics aren’t totally ignored.

(You can stream / download the album from the Bandcamp app below) https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=3867043909/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=2ebd35/tracklist=false/artwork=small/

Buy The Land That Connolly Warned Us Of Bandcamp

Joe Strummer, Class War and the ‘Rock Against the Rich’ tour, 1988.

In 1988, Joe Strummer embarked on a tour across Britain called ‘Rock Against the Rich’.

The tour was endorsed and organised by the anarchist group, Class War. Ian Bone, former leading member of Class War, has published this on the history of the tour.

..”Remember, in the late ‘80s, rock had zero street credibility – hip hop and sound system bass ruled the streets of the inner cities. The music may have changed, but the politics of the street remained the same: Class conflict, with a varying intensity of class warfare, raged the length and breadth of Britain. Strummer recognised this, and saw in the Class War people he met, the passionate intensity that he lacked and needed. He tried to use the media’s fixation with Class War to re-launch his career with a radical edge. And to a degree it worked well for him…”

Amongst a collection of newspapers and journals that I recently obtained, I found a copy of Class War that featured Joe Strummer and the Rock Against the Rich tour.

A scan of the paper can be found here.

I also found this on YouTube which is a recording from the tour: https://www.youtube.com/embed/UqoKwtRCS9I?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Gary Foley and The ClashIn “Aboriginal activism”

Pictures of Gary Foley with The ClashIn “Aboriginal activism”

Defining fascism: some notes on the Marxist interpretationIn “anti-fascism”

Published by hatfulofhistory

Australian-British academic interested in history, politics and criminal justice issues, with a little pop culture on the side. View all posts by hatfulofhistory

I Was A Teenage Anarchist And Now I’m A Mid-Thirties Anarchist

from MAGPIE at Birds Before the Storm, shared with thanks

Fifteen years ago today, on February 2nd, 2002, I became an anarchist. I was nineteen, living in NYC, and I attended the World Economic Forum protests. I knew the anarchists by reputation only — they wore all black and they smashed things. They were going to wear masks in defiance of NYC’s anti-mask laws. I wanted to know why, so I approached a man with his face obscured by a black bandanna.

“What’s anarchism?” I asked. 300px-black_bloc_at_rnc_running

“Well, we hate capitalism and the state.” He was very forthcoming, which I appreciated.

“What do you all do about it?”

“We build up alternative institutions without hierarchy while attacking and interfering with the existing, oppressive ones we despise.”

“Oh,” I said. I pondered this for a moment, but honestly only a moment. “Do you have an extra mask?”

He did, and he gave it to me. Simple as that, I became an anarchist. Continue reading “I Was A Teenage Anarchist And Now I’m A Mid-Thirties Anarchist”

Cristy C. Road’s “Spit and Passion”

Read a F*cking Book: Cristy C. Road‘s “Spit and Passion”

Posted byGabrielle Spit and Passion by Cristy C. Road is a graphic memoir about the anxious, fragile and formative moments between childhood and adolescence. Written with the wisdom of hindsight and illustrated with the often-gruesome imperfections that Road’s art is famous for, her memoir centers around her newly felt queerness and how her love affair with Green Day (yes, the band) saved her from the pain of being a weirdo.

Spit and Passion, via the Feminist Press

Raised by a “gang of boisterous Cuban women” in a working-class family, Road was torn between the casual homophobia that was part of the backdrop of her daily life, and her growing physical attraction to women. Continue reading “Cristy C. Road’s “Spit and Passion””

Jailed Pussy Riot denounce totalitarian Putin.. verdict Aug 17

Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot said Vladimir Putin’s Russia was the one on trial as they delivered closing arguments on Wednesday in a case seen as a key test of the powerful president’s desire to crackdown on dissent.

“This is a trial of the whole government system of Russia, which so likes to show its harshness toward the individual, its indifference to his honour and dignity,” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, one of the trio on trial said in an impassioned statement. “If this political system throws itself against three girls … it shows this political system is afraid of truth.”

The judge set 17 August as the day she would deliver a verdict against the women, charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred following an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral.

Prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence, arguing that the women sought to insult all of Russian

PUSSYRIOT TRIAL — Pussy Riot members, from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Orthodoxy and denying they were carrying out a political protest.

Tolokonnikova called the charges against them a “political order for repression” and denounced Putin’s “totalitarian-authoritarian system”, insisting Pussy Riot were an example of “opposition art”.

“Even though we are behind bars, we are freer than those people,” she said, looking at the prosecution from inside the glass cage where she and her two bandmates, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, have spent the nine-day trial. “We can say what we want, while they can only say what political censorship allows.

“Maybe they think it wouldn’t be wrong to try us for speaking against Putin and his system, but they can’t say that because it’s been forbidden,” she said, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the revolutionary words “No Pasaran”.

Couching their case in the long plight of political prisoners in the country, the three women urged Russians to reject Putin’s system and embrace freedom.

Alyokhina, 24, compared the trial to the Soviet Union’s persecution of Joseph Brodsky, when the young poet was charged with being a “social parasite”, becoming a global cause celebre that highlighted the government’s farcical control over culture.

“We are not guilty – the whole world is talking about it,” Alyokhina said, hours after Madonna became the latest, and biggest, star to come to the women’s defence.

“I am not scared of you,” Alyokhina told the court. “I’m not scared of lies and fiction, or the badly formed deception that is the verdict of this so-called court. Because my words will live, thanks to openness.

“When thousands of people will read and watch this, this freedom will grow with every caring person who listens to us in this country.”

Lawyers for Pussy Riot have been expecting a guilty verdict and three-year sentence, but said that was called into question following the judge’s delay in issuing her decision. Lawyer Nikolai Polozov said growing international attention, including recent messages of support from the likes of Madonna and Yoko Ono, had had their effect. “To take a quick decision under such pressure is very dangerous for the authorities, so they’ve taken a time out,” he told the Guardian. “No matter what the verdict is, we have won,” he added.

Each woman ended her closing statement to loud applause from the Russian journalists sitting in the courtroom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/08/pussy-riot-trial-closing-statement/prin

Pussy Riot: State seeks three years jail

Yekaterina Samutsevich is seen here being escorted into court Russian prosecutors have asked for three years’ in prison for three women musicians accused of inciting religious hatred during a protest in a cathedral. The three members of the punk band Pussy Riot played a song attacking Russian leader Vladimir Putin in front of an altar […]

Free Pussy Riot supporters hit Patriarch – Femen Kill Kirill

The Free Pussy riot campaign has gone global, hitting at the heart of oppression, semi slavery and open violence against women, in the sexist macho State and the medieval inquisitorial evil church. update https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/ God-is-punishing-jailed-pussy-riot-mothers-says-patriarch Аction […]

Sting, Madonna give support: Putin and Patriarch witch-hunt Pussy Riot

The trial continues of 3 women from the punk band Pussy Riot. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Mariya Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were taken into custody in February after singing a protest song against Putin in Moscow. They have spent already 5 months without bail for nothing more than playing a song in a church without permission. Their […]

‘God is punishing jailed Pussy Riot mothers’ says Patriarch

Trial Update. Tuesday. Witnesses were called who swore they were outraged by Pussyriot playing in a church…. God is judging Pussy Riot, says Russian church leader.