Creative resistance

Bush and Blair may have long claimed the end of conflict in Iraq, but musicians wise to their machinations are declaring the peace movement barely started.

The second volume of Peace not War, released on Tuesday, follows the format of last year's double CD compilation, which raised more than £50,000 for peace groups in 18 countries.

Its tracklisting was whittled down from 500 submissions, from big names donating album tracks to unsigned musicians offering quirky bedroom-mastered grooves.

With artists, managers and record labels all waiving royalties, the sizeable rally of voices suggests a wave of protest music perhaps greater than that of the Vietnam era.

Billy Bragg said about his contribution to volume one: "Protest music was prematurely declared to be unfashionable.

"Music has a role to play in spreading the word of peace.

"I think it is a case of using music to articulate something that you don't find articulated in the mainstream media.

"The most important thing it does is create a community of dissent, you realise you are not the only person who feels completely opposed to the war."

Penny Rimbaud from Crass, also on the first album, said: "People must realise that the real battle has only just begun."

Peace not War was launched by Australian musicians Kelly and Mudge, with the help of some mates, as an independent project to provide much-needed cash for grassroots peace groups.

Like volume one, the second album, in Greenham Common purple and green, will be sold at demos, meetings, concerts and online to raise funds at a local level.

Money made from shop sales is used to make donations of CDs to peace groups for them to then sell to maximise fundraising.

From an almost budgetless burned-CD production in an east London living room, the initiative has grown into an international venture.

But, demonstrating the strength of grassroots organisation, DIY fundraising is still essential to its success - activists shifting more units than record stores in Britain.

"The Peace not War CD is vital to the grass roots opposition to war, conquest and occupation.

"Censorship of anti-war music by the BBC, MTV and other media is all the more reason for doing it yourself," journalist John Pilger has enthused.

"When millions of people in hundreds of cities can co-operate for demonstrations like February 15, there's nothing stopping them taking the next step and seriously working out how to prevent Bush and Blair from starting another war."

The Peace not War website aims to get music fans thinking along these lines.

It notched up more than two million hits thanks to free music downloads and was designed to point listeners in the direction of their local peace group. A search engine holds contacts for thousands of groups around the world, searchable by town.

Peace not War also expanded into a four-day music and arts festival in February this year, organised to celebrate the anniversary of the moment that millions around the world showed their desire for peace in the streets of their cities.

Organiser Mudge said: "Compared to being lectured to at street marches, singing and dancing along to anti-war ideas is far more emotionally engaging.

It is also more likely to attract young people into the peace movement and thereby encourage them to engage with political change on a much deeper level.

This generation's anti-war musicians are not only more prolific than the Vietnam era's, they are much louder.

"The acoustic guitar has been replaced by massive beats and outrageous distortion.

"The past three years have provoked the most prolific period of protest music in history, widely heard thanks to computer and Internet technology - first designed by the US military and now crucial tools used by activists to organise globally.

"Independence has meant that the broad spectrum of peace groups could be fairly funded and radical lyrical content could not be censored, although their lack of resources has been challenging.

"With no record label and no promotional budget, the word had to be spread by peace groups and by DJs and stores who simply liked the music and the cause."

From studio-polished album tracks to bedroom productions, the selections on volume two - divided into "chords" and "beats" discs - lyrically express repulsion at modern warmongering.

It features titans like Sonic Youth and the briefly reformed Jane's Addiction, but some of the tracks by smaller names are the most interesting, such as Gertrude's kooky new wave pop and Visionary Underground's fusion of beats and samples. Some were chosen for inclusion ahead of well-known acts.

On the "beats" CD, lead by the commanding presence of Jurassic 5, rap artists reclaim hip-hop from inane commercial thugery to point the finger at the real gangsters on tracks such as Rawdog's Kill the President.

Across the compilation, responses to war are many.

Musicians tackle it through different emotions from riotous rage through humour and lyrical reflection, but never resignation.

Respect for the soldiers that find themselves trapped in the military maelstrom in Iraq is also expressed.

Featured musicians Michael Franti and Liquid Blue visited and performed for US soldiers in Iraq.

Sydney's The Herd and London's GM Baby talk about soldiers' traumatic experiences of battle.

Harking back to protest songs of old, Robb Johnson's acoustic The Day the World Said Stop the War sums up the CD, enshrining in folk legend the protest of February 2003 protests to complete a symposium of creative resistance.

British recipients of funds raised from volume one included Stop the War Coalition, CND, Voices in the Wilderness, ARROW, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Disarm DSEI, Globalise Resistance, Grassroots Opposition to War, Indymedia, Network for Peace, New Internationalist, Palestine ISM, Resist Bush, Rising Tide, Wombles and Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases.

WEB LINK:
www.peace-not-war.org