Objectivist Punk

[ChadM]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum and would like to say hello and introduce myself. I am Chad Merritt and I'm a musician. I recently finished a new album that is geared towards Objectivism and Ayn Rand's views on Laissez Faire Capitalism. It's a punk rock album and I hope to reach some kids in the high school years. If you guys have a chance check out some of the ruff mixes on my myspace page www.myspace.com/16hourdrive and let me know your thoughts on it. The album is being mastered next week and should be available on itunes by Sept 1 and the first pressing back by mid Sept.

Best Regards,

Chad

[Selene]

Welcome Chad:

Another musician...there goes the neighborhood.

One of the other missing areas for us Randians in the 60's was that we had no cool movement music. Viennese Waltzes were not really going to do well in NY City neighborhoods with young folks.

A punk rock anthem might fly today.

Adam

[ChadM]

Welcome Chad:

Another musician...there goes the neighborhood.

One of the other missing areas for us Randians in the 60's was that we had no cool movement music. Viennese Waltzes were not really going to do well in NY City neighborhoods with young folks.

A punk rock anthem might fly today.

Adam

Thanks Adam!

I'm gonna give it a whirl and see where it lands. There has to be a way to get a message to the younger generation! Ayn Rand gave me direction when I had none and she answered alot of my questions that I had always asked. Such as why do a certain percentage of the population carry the majority?! Anyways, thanks and take care.

-Chad

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chad,

Welcome to OL.

I'll give it a listen and get back to you.

But dayaamm!

Punk rock???

Michael

[Selene]

Chad:

Maybe you can challenge them to a Punk a Dictator Concert

Brashly shouting out his lyrics in crowded, smoky clubs, Alexei Nikonov zeroes in on provocative themes that most musicians here ignore -- authoritarianism and injustice in today's Russia. Nikonov, the outspoken singer of Saint Petersburg-based punk rock band PTVP, saves much of his venom for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, referring to him as a "pig" in one of his most strident songs.

"We live in a feudal society," Nikonov fumed in a backstage interview before a recent concert. "Everything is decided by one person, the dictator. The dictator decides everything."

This is not the sort of opinion one can find anymore on Russian television channels or most radio stations, where criticism of the government faded away after Putin became president in 2000.

Though Putin stepped down last year to become prime minister, he is still widely seen as Russia's true ruler.

Meanwhile Russian rock music lost much of its rebellious spirit after being at the forefront of perestroika, the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, musicians and critics say.

Ironically, some of the leading figures in 1980s rock now perform at patriotic concerts organised by the Kremlin.

But in Saint Petersburg, a city long seen as Russia's "window to the West", a handful of bands have defied the trend and continue to speak out.

They include PTVP, whose full name translates as "The Last Tanks in Paris," and some veteran bands who complain of being marginalized on television and radio because of their politics.

"Most bands, for some reason, have become conformist and most music is just fun," said Sergey Chernov, a music columnist for the St. Petersburg Times newspaper who has followed Russian rock since the 1980s.

"PTVP are unique in touching on political and social subjects. There are probably two or three well-known bands who do this."

In 1981, when Saint Petersburg was called Leningrad, Communist authorities allowed the opening of the Soviet Union's first legal rock-music club.

Though closely overseen by the KGB, the Leningrad Rock Club became the heart of a vibrant scene in which many bands inserted veiled protest messages into their songs, which won enormous popularity as perestroika anthems.

But with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the old censorship vanished and capitalism became the new master of Russia's music industry.

The result was the "degradation" of Russian rock, said Mikhail Borzykin, the frontman of Televizor, a band which got its start in the Leningrad Rock Club and which is now one of Russia's few politically outspoken rock groups.

"When it comes one's position as a citizen, it has become unfashionable to express it openly. There is an attitude that politics should be separate from art," Borzykin said.

The crushing of media freedom under Putin also had a devastating effect, as television and radio stations were taken over by Kremlin-friendly owners who feared the slightest hint of dissent, Borzykin said.

"All show-business managers are connected, through rent or other financial obligations, to officials," he said.

"So they are very afraid of losing their small business by getting into any conflicts, even petty ones, with the authorities."

Last year, Televizor -- which means "Television" -- got into a conflict with a Saint Petersburg television channel that asked them to do a live performance, then canceled it after reviewing the songs Borzykin planned to sing.

The channel said it was because the songs contained inappropriate words, but Borzykin called it political censorship.

For radically outspoken PTVP, which was founded in 1996 in the small town of Vyborg near Russia's border with Finland, the problems are even worse.

Several times over the years, police rushed the stage and stopped concerts after Nikonov sang about Putin, and once in Vyborg he was hauled off to jail before being freed without charges, band members recalled.

"It is mostly provincial towns that are afraid," Nikonov said.

The band is undoubtedly disrespectful to Putin, especially in its 2002 song "FSB Whore," whose title refers to the KGB's post-Soviet successor agency, which Putin once led.

The song's lyrics are: "Don't listen to anything! / He always lies to you! / Putin, Putin, Putin! / A pig will find filth everywhere!"

Whether due to censorship or simply the limited appeal of its raw punk rock, PTVP's songs virtually never appear on television or radio. The band plays at clubs where it has a small but loyal following.

"They have a clear point of view on what's happening in Russia today on the political front," said Pavel Isakov, a young fan at the recent PTVP concert in Saint Petersburg.

"They have the right approach to this, the position that young people share, and not what the media like to promote."

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

http://www.breitbart...&show_article=1

Edited August 18, 2009 by Selene

[Jonathan]

Hey, good work, Chad!

J

[johnXsmith]

Welcome Chad:

Another musician...there goes the neighborhood.

One of the other missing areas for us Randians in the 60's was that we had no cool movement music. Viennese Waltzes were not really going to do well in NY City neighborhoods with young folks.

A punk rock anthem might fly today.

Adam

Thanks Adam!

I'm gonna give it a whirl and see where it lands. There has to be a way to get a message to the younger generation! Ayn Rand gave me direction when I had none and she answered alot of my questions that I had always asked. Such as why do a certain percentage of the population carry the majority?! Anyways, thanks and take care.

-Chad

Adam: yeah, Chad and his guys might indeed make it fly. They have an album on iTunes now, and they're on the forefront of a growing movement of Obj-pop. No reason the nihilists should have all the powerful music, eh? I came here browsing for like-minded musicians to test-market my own (embryonic) idea: Objectivist Shock-metal (making rock-n-roll dangerous again, www.myspace.com/voxliberorum). My stuff is NOT public-ready, since I'm just a drummer still doing intra-band concept proofs of my songs and such. But I couldn't resist jumping into this thread.

Chad: Glad to see you're doing what you're doing. I sent you a MySpace mail.

$

[johnXsmith]

Chad:

Maybe you can challenge them to a Punk a Dictator Concert

Thank you for posting that. I'm developing quite an interest in Resistance Art. :-)

$

[Rich Engle]

Hi, Chad!

I hope the mastering process works out just like you want it to--that's always tricky when you want to keep the raw edge, but maybe are adding some neat production values. I listened to the stuff and it sounds very authentic. Also, you have an impressive amount of views, which I guess represents a pretty strong groundswell. This is all good.

Maybe, if you work hard, you can get on tour as a warmup for The Ramones. I think there's like one left, but still.

Good work. Strange work, but very good!

Best,

Rich Engle

[syrakusos]

I recently finished a new album that is geared towards Objectivism and Ayn Rand's views on Laissez Faire Capitalism. It's a punk rock album and I hope to reach some kids in the high school years.

The Styrenes. (Not Objectivist.)

http://www.thestyrenes.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thestyrenes

http://www.scatrecords.com/styrenes.htm

Also playing guitar with them this tour is John Morton of the electric eels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Eels_(band)

Punk does not get much airtime among Objectivists.

Growing up, we had popular music around, but mostly classical. When it came to sheet music, the party line was "Good music is cheap and cheap music is expensive." A fat book of Chopin Etudes cost no more than a Frank Sinatra fold-out. Rock 'n' roll was tolerable and we all watched American Bandstand, especially when it went to prime time briefly. What did it for us was a Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concert where he sang the Beatles' "And I Love Her" to demonstrate the common use of sonata form. A few years ago, working as a substitute teacher, I was assigned an orchestra class for three days. The teacher had them watching some fakey biography of Bach with imaginary episodes from his life. I brought in THE STYRENES and showed how sonata form is stable across time. The drummers thought it was great! However, one of the violinist girls complained to the principal that (quote) "her educational experience had been diminished."

BTW, I do not play any instrument. Practicing always sounded awful. I write.

[Rich Engle]

BTW, I do not play any instrument. Practicing always sounded awful. I write.

Yup. I do both, and practicing basically sucks. You just try to find new tricks for an old dog. It's almost as exciting as taking out the recycling.

But, practice is not mandatory in the rock and roll business. It helps, but is far from mandatory.

I remember getting stuck with the Chopin Etudes. Beautiful stuff. Too bad you usually grow to hate the thing you love. That's practice. I can't even manage a decent rubato and I'm supposed to do this? Ack!

No wonder I switched to guitar. At least you have a chance to get girls. You can take it places and stuff.

rde