Rage Against The Machine "Killing In The Name Of"

I was catching my breath after The Ramones.  It was Lollapalooza 1996, and earlier I had wormed my way to the front of the stage to soak up what I knew would be my last chance to see the Punk icons.  Now, sweaty and beat from the hot sun, I had retreated to a place a good football-field-away from the stage.

"When Rage Against The Machine comes on, we are moving back," said the Mom to her 10 year old boy.

"Aww, Mom!" said the kid standing next to me.

Now, God bless this Mom, for taking her 10 year old to Lollapalooza.  Fat chance of my Mom ever having done such a thing.

But I thought, Lady, give me an f-n break and just relax.

When The Ramones had played, there was a mosh pit that extended out in a swirl some 100 feet from the stage.  For Mom and the boy to be caught up in any of the mayhem, the pit would have to more-than-triple in size.  Not bloody likely, I thought.

An hour later, I was hoping that the kid had listened to his Mom.

Lollapalooza 1996 made a stop in a field outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, and I will tell you I have never, never, never seen anything like it in person.

And (let me apologize for this in advance) the only place that I've seen anything even comparable, was in watching "Triumph Of The Will."

"Triumph Of The Will" was Leni Renifenstal's Nazi propaganda film.  It showed Hitler at the height of his speaking powers.  They made us watch it in film school, and I remember really being struck, even though I didn't understand German, that Hilter had such a powerful way of speaking, and influencing his audience, that he seemed to be producing mass hysteria---and compliance---with his incendiary rhetoric.

There is nothing more frightening than 25,000 kids jumping up and down, in unison, screaming, in unison, "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME. FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME. FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME."

The mosh pit had more than tripled in size, and the dust from the dry earth rose up from the crowd.  Somewhere, far to stage left, a couple of people through empty "personal pizza" boxes in the air.  Within 30 seconds, pizza boxes went up by the dozens in that area, and the idea caught on.  Like "The Wave" at a baseball game, boxes and paper plates were spinning in the air from left to right across the field.

The band was in complete command.

I have no doubt that after a half-hour of the set, had the band said, "We'll storm Knoxville and burn it to the ground!" that the crowd would have done this, without a second thought.

But they knew what they were in command of and wielded the power carefully.

While Zach de la Rocha was speaking out against the government during a breakdown section of the song, someone raised the Rebel flag.

Can you imagine?  The f-n Confederate flag?

I think there was a moment, when he would have liked to say something.  A pause.

But instead, he just stopped.  And glared.  Like you've never seen a man glare before.

I don't know who raised the flag, what he was thinking or what happened next---I was too far away from it.

All's I know is, the flag came down quickly and decisively.

"FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME."

Ironically, he didn't have to say a word for the crowd to do exactly what he wanted.


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Tom Morello plays the Newport Folk Festival this weekend.  It won't likely be as crazy, but it might be as powerful.  Listen in at www.mvyradio.com

Disclaimer:  I feel the need to apologize for comparing anything to Hitler.  Obviously, RATM's politics are as far as you can get from the Nazis.  I was only comparing how the audiences reacted to the speakers.

For a lighter take on the ridiculousness of a crowd chanting "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME" in unison, please see the scene from Monty Python's "Life Of Brian" below.



Hear the song on Youtube.


See the scene from "Life Of Brian" on Youtube.

Rage Against The Machine "Bombtrack"

The big, winding clover-leaf exit covered more ground than the entire neighborhood block I grew up on. And with the windows of my Toyota rolled down, I sped around the slightly sloping embankment, like a racecar driver on a track.

The exit off the Florida Turnpike emptied into the town of Davie, which is just directly West of Ft. Lauderdale. This was the drive I made every morning, to my first real, professional, post-college job.

I was working for a cable company, in the production department. You know those cheap-looking, low budget commercials for some rinky-dink local eatery, that pops up during a CNN commercial break? I was a guy that made those.

Every day I was shooting close up after close up of ugly chicken sandwiches and pan shots of unphotogenic hairdressing school students and stand-ups of stiff-gesturing car dealers. And always, always, always---because it couldn't be a cable commercial without it---the client insisted that we shoot a picture of the sign above the front door.

But I was doing what I love. And (despite my awareness of production value limitations) it was an artistic and creative environment.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the social environment I'd always assumed the workplace would be.

The reality was that all my co-workers were over 30. Most were married. And many had kids.

I, on the other hand, was just out of college, where 90% of the people I interacted with, saw, spoke to, looked at, ate with, slept with and thought about, were between the ages of 18 and 28. It was truly culture-shock to suddenly be somewhere, where not a single person was in the same stage of life.

I realized, pretty quickly, that at work, I had to try to age-up, to fit in. It didn't help that at 23 years old, I still looked like I was 15. But I tried to act like an mature adult. I told everyone to call me Paul (because P.J. was a kid's name). And I maintained a professional attitude, as best as a green-rookie knew how to project one.

That ride to work was mine though.

When I had moved a few months earlier, I had driven my car from Massachusetts to Florida, not thinking about the fact that I was moving to a place where it might suck to own a car with no air conditioning. So I always drove with the windows rolled down and WKPX cranked.

WKPX was a public radio station, run out of a Broward County High School, and DJed mainly by high school students, who played Alternative Rock.

And this was the 1991/1992, which was such a watershed time in music. WKPX is the first place I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and Pearl Jam and Jesus Jones and Cracker and Rage Against The Machine.

In particular, Rage was a mind-scrambler for me. Not only was "Bombtrack" amazing, it simply sounded like nothing else I'd ever heard. The mix of rap and rock and guitar-wizardry and passion and politics . . . it was opening a new world for me.

I can remember coming around that big winding exit that emptied out into the town where I worked, with "Bombtrack" blaring on the shitty car speakers, and me "raging" along.

In a few minutes, I'd be entering this world where I was Paul, and I was serious, and I was professional.

But at that moment in my car, I was me, with no conformity, no compromises and no air conditioning.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Cracker "Teen Angst"

It's kind of weird to be getting to a place in my life where my relationship is changing, with songs I already know.

I mean, as I age, my relationship with new music has certainly changed.

Meaning, at 42, I am less likely to seek out punk rock and hard-edged and loud music, compared to my 25-year-old self.

That's only natural.

It's not that I don't like it. I'm just less likely to keep current, or to be having an after-midnight party that requires Rage Against The Machine to be played at full volume.

This comes as no surprise to me. I kinda expected such a thing to happen.

But what I haven't expected, is to find myself disconnected from music I once could connect with.

Case-in-point is this Cracker song.

I still love the energy and David Lowery's delivery.

But at 25, I had an appetite for irony.

Here at 42, though, I just don't have that ironic distance from life.

I don't know if it's marriage, or kids, or just getting older or more mature, but I find myself less distant from life, for better and for worse.

I hadn't really thought about my relationship with this song, like a relationship with a person, but I guess it is. Some friends go with you through the transition, and some, while you're happy to hear from them from time to time, don't go with you on your journey.


See the video on Youtube.