You are the president of Special America. Which band plays your inauguration? The after-party?
When I hear the phrase “inauguration party,” I immediately
flash to an image of Beyonce blowing kisses to the Obamas while singing an Etta
James song in an elaborately staged spectacle that was like a cross between a
Superbowl Halftime Show and the production numbers on Dancing With The American
Idols. “At Last” is a beautiful, glorious song—and, in this context, it became
an anthem of those who believed the election meant that “Yes we can” had become
“Yes, we did” as if the movement that elected him was now safe to disband.[1]
I also can picture Eleanor Roosevelt serving peanut butter
sandwiches to unemployed homeless workers in 1933. At Obama’s party, music was
presented as the opposite of a cheap sandwich. It’s more like an expensive dish
(look at the price to a ticket to a Beyonce concert) appealing to a consumer
desire, a want, than a affordable service for a basic human need. As a fiscal conservative, I know we could
create a more affordable and more
profoundly engaging musical experience that celebrates the strength of the
American character; one that is more healthy than a peanut-butter sandwich, yet
more able to address the needs of citizens than the “bigger-is-better” ethos of
Hollywood.
My Mandate
The majority of the citizens who elected me are discontent
with the economy as well as the corporate culture, including music, of this
country. They elected me because I made promises to restore the middle class by
bringing back, and updating, the regulations and infrastructure-building
jobs-creation programs that characterized the New Deal, especially the Works
Progress Administration. Such government programs helped create the most prosperous middle class of
any country during the modern era between roughly 1948 ad 1978. It is not a
coincidence that this post-New Deal period also produced the most vital,
democratic, music culture this country has ever known.
The connections between the economy and the health of this
country’s musical culture need to be emphasized. 50 years ago, as older
generations know, America had a much stronger locally-based democratic music
economy. Almost every city had at least one small record label that could
produce a national hit. Small venues and dance-clubs thrived, small businesses
such as record labels and radio stations poured money back into the local
economy; music was more central to everyday American life, and helped make
citizens more productive.
Many of today’s cultural crises (violence, drugs, the
hopelessness that comes from disenfranchisement, obesity and other health
issues) can be traced to the corporate takeover of the music industry in the
last 45 years. We can’t change this overnight, but using The New Deal as a
model, we can begin to establish the institutions that can reverse the trends
of the past 45 years. In my administration, music will be treated as a basic
need that can heal individuals as well as the public sphere, the commons, but
that don’t mean it can’t be inspiring, invigorating and fun!
So, who is going to
perform at your party?
The party is pointless unless it can be a platform to begin
to enact domestic policies that don’t sleep on the agenda that elected me. The
choice of individual bands is less important than creating a context to
democratize music. Imagine a variety show that can be done cheaply. At the very
least, we should do away with the gaudy larger-than-life techno-spectacles, and
help create a network of Dance Floors that have a more democratic intimacy
(like “Soul Train” or the early days of “American Bandstand” did). This
intimacy could be recreated or re-coordinated, with many small parties occurring
simultaneously in every municipality, each with their on talent and their own
needs.
So, your party will be
a dance party?
In a sense, yes. Dance is a more democratic medium than
music insofar as one doesn’t need to go to school to learn how to play one’s
body as an instrument, and many of the best live performers know that they
perform better when people are dancing, or shouting, or are otherwise deeply,
physically, engaged with the music. It’s a collective experience. The
audience/dancers are not mere “consumers.”
But not everybody
dances. Some people need to get drunk to dance. Are you going to mandate dance
music?
Of course not, but in my travels across this great country
of ours, I have seen over and over how the funk of James Brown and others have
had an irresistible power to bring people together during work-out classes in
gyms and in pools; old and young, black, white, Latino and Asian, one nation
under a groove, and often for health reasons—even in 2014. So, this
inauguration party can also serve to further the healthcare agenda as much as
my proposal to cover treatment by licensed chiropractors, massage and
cranial-sacral therapists in the affordable health care act. In this light, the
emphasis on dance liberates music from its association—encouraged by the
corporations—with youth culture, from drugs, “sex” and bling. There will also
be beds available for disabled people to rock, horizontally.
You mention James
Brown? He’s dead. Do you have a particular song in mind for your party, like
Clinton’s theme song, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow?”
The woman who wrote that was British; we demand American
music: contemporary Country Music and Urban music will be featured, but so will
older music that is not advocated by the corporate driven industry because
music has a power to educate while it’s entertaining. So, a song that can get
people moving, with a message as powerful as “Fight The Power,” should be
included. Maybe even that particular song; and if it can’t be performed live,
we will play a recording (for some recordings still have more power than much
live music).
So “Fight The Power,”
is your theme song?
I know the media will jump on me for that, but it’s not
merely the content of the words that is the message of that song, but its power
to get people to dance regardless of what it is saying. Those who love other
music with “profound words” on one hand, and those who love a good beat
regardless of words can come together because of a song like this. The
corporate driven music culture that has become increasingly deregulated since
that time clearly does everything to separate the power of this coalition that
elected me.
Some people are just
turned off by political songs that seem too heavy handed.
This is why I wouldn’t only have a band like Public Enemy or
The Coup. This does not mean that there will not be room for romance and for
tears at this party. Country pop diva, Carrie Underwood, for instance, could
reprise her 2008 hit, “Just a Dream” (with its implicit anti-war message that
helped get Obama elected). Nor do the words to every song have to be political.
We have three hours to work with.
Yet, it’s important to stress, that since one of my mandates
is to create more job opportunities, and institutions for unemployed musicians,
I use these songs as examples of the kind of song I’d include. And, yes, as
President, I will continue to fight the corporate power—but I cannot do it
alone.
What other kinds of
music would you include?
Gospel music; some of the best, most uplifting music being
made today comes from the church.
Are you worried this
would violate the separation of church and state?
No, church and state should be separate, just like
corporation and state should be separate. The major corporations have not
produced great music; the church has. That’s a fact. That music has not made
this country a theocracy; gospel music is a powerful people’s music that can
aid in the fight against the corporatocracy. I do believe in municipal music….
Do you mean marching
bands playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy?”
If I can avoid it, no! (laughs). But I do mean music from
school, after-school and pre-school programs. I ran on the campaign promise of
restoring government funds to music-in-the-school programs. Studies show these
programs have helped students do better in other classes and prepare them for
the “real world.” Furthermore, they serve as an effective anti-violence
campaign that reaches kids while they’re young. Because children are not
empowered as musicians at a young age, the corporate-driven culture is able to
seduce many away from the way it is taught---if it is taught at all—in schools.
Kids grow up not knowing about the great music that is being made in their own
hometown, but only about the music pushed by the globalized industry, which,
like corn syrup, can hook them before they even know what hit them. They’re
given little choice; bringing in local musicians to help teach these classes
will not only create more employment opportunities locally, but will also
provide the children with passionate human role models to apprentice under when
they are most open to it. And, yes, some of these school musicians will be
invited to the party.
It sounds like you
want a lot of amateur musicians at your party.
They will be of the highest quality. I can’t guarantee that
all the performances will be better than what we get from the mass media that
treats music like it’s sonic wallpaper, but it will offer a clear alternative
to this culture. Indigenous populations will be invited to share their music,
which has been severely marginalized….
Over and over, you
mention your distrust of Hollywood’s mass-culture industry. Will your event be
televised?
That may be unavoidable. We’re working on alternatives.
Obviously, this event must have a virtual presence. I see it as the first of a
series of “Fireside Podcasts,” with music and conversation, with plenty of
opportunities for commercial (non-corporate) tie-ins. We will use these
podcasts to stimulate the economy by working closely with small, locally owned
businesses—especially worker owned collectives, to help provide advertising,
and cultural content that address the needs of their local communities.
This is part of the plan to nationalize the music industry,
to nationalize all currently licensed commercial radio stations (the vast
majority of which are owned by four media conglomerates who break anti-trust
laws that are no longer enforced). Once the finite airwaves are nationalized,
the price of radio stations will be set low enough so small local businesses
and community organizations can buy them. Since vital contemporary music has
largely disappeared from the radio dial in the era of the corporate dominance, many
people no longer listen to the radio. Yet the radio has two major advantages
for music culture in 2014 that the web-only podcasts lack; it’s locally
grounded, and there are a finite number of radio frequencies in contrast to the
infinite, and largely placeless, podcasts that many currently listen to. This ambitious
plan not only fosters competition between locally-owned regulated small
businesses, but also can re-establish mechanisms for a more democratic, and
less arbitrary trickle-down exchange of recorded and broadcast music. It can
bring the price of advertising down to reopen it to small business, while
hiring local musicians to create jingles (like many of the iconic figures of 50
years ago did at the beginning of their career). Because of the increased
demand for radios, this could also help create jobs by bringing radio
manufacturing back to America.
Finally, we know
you’re a musician too—would you perform music at this event?
Certainly not as a solo act. Live music, at its most
profound, is a collective experience. I would be more than honored to stand in
the back and led some trumpet to a dance band, or play some piano or
read/improvise a rousing political speech. But it’s important to get people
moving first, then we can mobilize—much more than Beyonce could, or that
inauguration party that appeared on the TV show “The West Wing,” in which the
“singer songwriter” James Taylor is hired to butcher Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is
Gonna Come.” This image becomes an emblem of old-school “liberal” pieties, the
kind of “good for you” force feeding that de-spiritualizes both duty and
pleasure. It doesn’t have the power to bring people together, but is at best a
sideshow.
[1] Many Etta James fans objected to what they saw as
disrespect, but many others supported Obama’s political savvy in appealing to the
Hollywood-based contemporary mass-media music culture, since Hollywood was a
big campaign donor.
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