I've been part of a few music scenes in my lifetime, strictly as a bystander/general dogsbody, never as an active participant, some of these were good - the great North Hykeham Ska Revival of 1998, the Heartland of Nottingham Industrial in the mid 90s, the defiant outbursts of the late 90's polish incursion of Fulham - and some bad (incredibly incredibly bad) - The Wolds Crusty Convoy, the Fenland Glam revival of 2001, and worst of all, the Worksop symphonic metal bands of the mid 2000s.
The one thing that all if these scenes, and all of the bands involved had in common, apart from me of course, is the passion that was there. The absolute and utter passion that success would be had, that the music was amazing, and that things could be changed!
Nowadays, i tend to associate these levels of passion with the left. By the left, i don't mean the Labour party, or mainstream politics, i mean the small groupings that spring up at a moments notice, the anarchists, the solidarity campaigns, the campaignining Trade Unions (by which, i mean of course PCS) and the occupy camps.
Over the last few days, many of you will have received an email, a tweet, a message, asking you to purchase "The workers; We can work together." Like many of you, i followed the link, and watched the youtube video, and like many of you, i was appalled and disgusted.
We are at one of the defining moments in History for the working class, in the future, November 30th will be seen as either the point when the masses gave up, and rolled over to die, or, hopefully, when they rose up, and fought off the shackles of the rich, and the corporations who try to keep us down.
As such, you'd hope that the TUC would have chose to release a song with the anger and passion felt by millions, to try and rally the troops to the cause, but no, they choose to release the most anodyne pile of steaming dog turds this side of the X-Factor (and the other side as well) with a wishy washy sentiment "lets work together" - no, lets smash the system, lets recreate the world in the image of most of humanity, lets have anger, passion, desire for change, belief, hope, inspiration. A song that can bring together the whole country in legion to stop the attacks. Yet again, the TUC let's us down...
I wasn't going to write anything at all about this, as it didn't think it was worth even this little effort, but my phone gave me inspiration on my walk home from work during the dark. First of all, it played Get up while you can - one of the best songs by Atari Teenage Riot - a band who fused techno with hardcore in an attack against neofascists in early 90s germany, and then, it followed it by one of my favourite artists of the last five years, the strictly none political (or so he says) Frank Turner.
Frank Turners beautiful Track Love Ire & song is the sort of song that i think the TUC should have commisioned, an acceptance of the failures of the past, and the lethargy felt by many, followed by a heartfelt and powerful call to man the barricades.
Whoever was in chrge of the commissioning of "The Workers", i undertsand the thining behind it, but you have failed on every single level imaginable, and then on thousands more. If anybody actually pays to buy this song, i may have reached the end of the line in my despair with the british isles
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