Once my primary schooling was finished and I moved onto Intermediate ( Middle school for the Americans out there ) I ended up in what can only be called musical purgatory. The big problem was I was not the most popular guy at school ( coming from a school out of the area and not knowing anyone didn't help ) I tended to keep to myself and had a small arrangement of friends that I hung around with. Needless to say my musical growth was stunted for a period while I tried to regain control of my life - both socially and mentally.
I found myself hanging out with older kids outside of school and I started hearing new music that I was not familiar with. One of the most prolific of these was Old School English Punk. A family friend had introduced me to a band called 'The Anti-Nowhere League' and it was like nothing I had ever heard before. The guitaring was erratic, the drumming was sloppy, the lyrics were poor and not very intelligent and the bass guitarist.....Well, don't get me started. But somehow it worked. It worked really well. The tune was catchy and easy to bounce to and the rhyming of the lyrics with the music was solid. The first song of theirs I heard was 'We are The League' which was amazingly brutal yet catchy. If you watch the link, you can understand why Mrs Taylor our music teacher turned the song off half way through when it was my turn to play a song in music class. Punk music opened up a whole new world to me and I was digging it. Then came Peter & The Test Tube Babies and as much as they were pretty cool to listen to, they were banned due to the lyrics and content of there songs. Never really thought about it much back then but now I can fully understand. They were pretty horrendous. I still remember the first time I heard The Dead Kennedy's and all that changed. Politically anti establishment and in pursuit of the Freedom of Speech. They embodied so much of what a band that rebelled against society should be that I really started paying attention to what the lyrics of the songs were actually about. Check out 'Holiday in Cambodia and California Uber Alles' or check out this interview below on Oprah with Jello Biafra ( lead singer of Dead Kennedy's ) and Tipper Gore - The lady responsible for the infamous "Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" sticker.
Punk music opened my eyes to the world and put things in a whole new light. The world was not just about "Giving love a bad name" and "Dancing on the Ceiling" or happy hippy pop songs. There was a real feeling of underlying angst in the world, people were not happy and they sang about it. I started looking at protest songs and what and why they were sung. Pretty heavy stuff for a 13 year old to get into but it was something that really threw me. Tracy Chapmans' "Behind the Wall" was a great song and the lyrics really put domestic violence into the mainstream., Peter Gabriel's "Biko" about the Anti Apartheid campaigner who died in police custody and one of my all time favourite protest groups is Public Enemy. The song 'Burn Hollywood Burn' off the album Fear of a Black Planet is by far and away one of the best about white capitalisation of the entertainment industry and the portrayal of African Americans in the movie industry.
By the time I was at High School in 1992 a new type of music had descended the musical realms for protest. Rage Against The Machine - If you were angry, or felt like you had been mistreated by parents and teachers then this was the band to listen to. I still remember the first time I heard this band. I was in Social Studies and while the teacher was out ( which he frequently was ) a school mate pulled his Walkman out and told me to have a listen. The song was 'Know Your Enemy" . 2 words: Blown Away. This anger and injustice from the 60's had re risen to take a new form of aggressive metal. Protest music had a new voice and it was LOUD! ( footnote: Who would of thought that the next big protest band would be The Dixie Chicks? WTF?! )
Music to me now had a point, a focus and a reason. It was showing me the world and how we live, it disguised itself in everyday arenas and quietly helped itself to the subconscious.
Music was teaching me.
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