Live review: L.A. Rising with Rage Against the Machine and more

Those concerned about the misguided energies of rave kids, of the chaos that somehow manages to collide with mass-market electronic music at every turn, should be thankful that the Rage kids –-  those in the Coliseum on Saturday night who are obsessed with the collected music and ideas of Rage Against the Machine  -- haven’t yet combusted in the streets of L.A.

Because unlike the underlying philosophy of rave culture, at least as imagined in the scene’s “PLUR” mantra of “peace, love, unity, respect,” the anger and tension during Rage’s daylong music festival L.A. Rising in downtown L.A. was much more menacing and forceful than a bunch of dance freaks angry at the man for not being able to boogie on Hollywood Boulevard.

The Rage-curated bill featured British trio Muse, Chicago aggro-punk band Rise Against, masterful singer and rapper Lauryn Hill, Peruvian American rapper Immortal Technique and Monterrey, Mexico's El Gran Silencio. The nine-hour festival was the biggest music event held at the Coliseum since last summer’s Electric Daisy Carnival electronic music festival, which made headlines after the death of a 15-year-old girl and YouTube clips showed bloodied fans scaling Coliseum barriers to get onto the field. On Saturday, there was a heavy security and police presence all over the place.

L.A. Rising: Rage Against the Machine overwhelms the Coliseum

  

This post has been updated. See below for details.

The photo above might give you a sense of the energy at the L.A. Coliseum on Saturday night, where Rage Against the Machine regrouped for a massive closing slot during L.A. Rising, the band's first festival. The band capped off a day of music that ranged from hard punk to art rock to classic hip hop to many combinations thereof.

The Rage-curated bill featured British trio Muse, Chicago aggro-punk band Rise Against, Lauryn Hill, Immortal Technique and Monterrey, Mexico's El Gran Silencio. The nine hour festival was the biggest music event held at the city-owned Coliseum since last summers Electric Daisy Carnival electronic music festival, and there was a heavy security and police presence throughout the venue. But the evening seemed to go without a hitch -- that is, unless you happened to be in one of the many mosh pits that broke out during both Rise Against and Rage Against: they popped open in the crowd like vortexes in a rising tide -- these big holes on the pitch. Were you swirling in a pit, the evening may have been a bit more complicated.

You can see some of the mosh pits in the photo above -- but at the show's peak I counted 18 different ones going at the same time. At the center of one of the most active, fans built a firepit using toilet paper and scraps. It burned high for a few songs.

We'll have a review of the day's performances on Sunday.

RELATED:

Rage Against the Machine headlines L.A. Rising festival

Tom Morello to release new Nightwatchman album album in the fall

Rage Against the Machine play immigrants benefits show at the Palladium

-- Randall Roberts

Updated: The original version of this post misspelled Lauryn Hill's first name. We have corrected it above.

Photo: Rage Against the Machine performs at the L.A. Coliseum. Credit: Randall Roberts

Tom Morello lets pro-labor flag fly in new 'Union Town' EP

There’s nothing like a big political rally to get the creative juices flowing for a politically progressive rocker. That’s just what happened after guitarist, singer and songwriter Tom Morello took part in demonstrations at the state capitol in Madison, Wis., recently to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to strip the state’s public workers of the ability to engage in collective bargaining.

The results can be heard imminently in Morello’s new eight-song EP, “Union Town,” a collection the Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave/The Nightwatchman musician summarizes as “fighting songs.” The title tune will be available Thursday as a free download at SaveWorkers.org. The EP will be released in digital form on May 17 and on CD and vinyl on July 19 under Morello's new deal with New West Records. Proceeds from sale of the album will go to the America Votes Labor Unity Fund.

“I was so inspired by what I saw in Madison,” Morello told Pop & Hiss this week. “It seems very much like we're at an important crossroad, and that this movmvent was not just about stopping some bad legislation, but possibly harnessing the energy of 100,000 to 150,000 people who were in the streets and want to put some teeth back in the labor movement in the U.S.”

Morello is an unapologetic labor supporter, citing both his own two decade-plus membership in Musicians' Union Local 47 in Los Angeles and that of his mother, a public school teacher and active member of the teachers union.

Morello returned from the February rally in Madison and wrote “Union Town” and two other originals -- “A Wall Against the Wind” and “Which Side Are You On?” -- and recorded the whole thing over a period of just four days. Among the other songs on the EP are his renditions of the Merle Travis-Tennessee Ernie Ford country coal-mining anthem “16 Tons,” Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” the folk standard  “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” and a rally-ready chant titled “Solidarity Forever” that borrows the melody of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

In his version of “This Land Is Your Land,” Morello turns the tables on tradition, ignoring the first couple of verses of the song that are typically taught in elementary school and focusing instead on the politically charged latter verses usually ignored in the public arena.

“That’s a conscious choice,” he said. “Ninety-nine times out of 100, in the third-grade classroom or sung at a ballgame, they exclude the class-warfare verses. What this song is really about is which side are you on?”

Tom Morello to release new Nightwatchman solo album in summer

 
Rage Against the Machine guitarist-songwriter Tom Morello will release his third solo album using the moniker the Nightwatchman, "World Wide Rebel Songs,” in late summer under a new record deal he has signed with New West Records.

Morello signed with New West because “Their commitment to their artists is inspiring and I'm looking forward to fanning the flames of discontent with many Nightwatchman releases under their banner,"  he said in a statement announcing the signing and the album information.

Live Review: One Day As a Lion at Eagle Rock's Center for the Arts

When the stage crew set up a large screen behind the small stage at the former Carnegie library that is now home to the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, audience members might have anticipated some sweet multimedia. One Day As a Lion, the project combining the talents of Rage Against the Machine town crier Zack de la Rocha and ex-Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, was about to play its second-ever live show. A barrage of images, maybe ripped from news sites on the Web, would complement the band's political lyrics and multi-directional avant-rock sound.

The screen remained blank, though, after De La Rocha, Theodore and keyboardist Joey Karam tromped onstage to excited applause and began a 40-minute set. It was merely there to block the sunlight streaming through the large glazed window behind the band. The late-afternoon sun still found its way in, lending a beatific glow to De la Rocha's wiry mop of hair. He looked about as happy as a restless 40-year-old rock star could be.

One Day As a Lion released an EP in 2008, but didn't play any live shows. It seemed that the project might only serve as an experiment for its two principals -- a kind of two-man retreat through which each would rethink the already challenging rock sounds they'd already developed in their better-known groups. But this set and the one ODAAL performed the previous afternoon in Pomona featured new music alongside the song from their debut -- and a new member, Karam, who freed De la Rocha from his own keyboard, allowing him to step out and stir up the crowd while delivering his rapid-fire verbal flow. This trio was fully armed for present and future assaults.

Rage Against the Machine plays immigrants' benefit show at the Palladium on July 23 [UPDATED]

Arizona's loss is Los Angeles' gain in live music, apparently: Rage Against the Machine and Conor Oberst have just announced a one-off show at the Hollywood Palladium on July 23 to support the Sound Strike's boycott of Arizona in the wake of the controversial SB 1070.

The concert will raise funds for a number of immigrant-activist organizations, including the community organizing group Puente, Arizona and the Florence Project, which provides legal counsel and social services to immigrant communities. The show will be Rage's first in Los Angeles proper in 10 years. An on-sale date for tickets has not been announced yet.

[UPDATE: Tickets go on-sale Monday, July 19 at 10:00 a.m.]

-- August Brown

Photo by Alberto Martin / EPA

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Outernational, Tom Morello cover 'Deportees' to protest Arizona immigration law

Politically charged New York rock group Outernational has enlisted Tom Morello for a new recording of Woody Guthrie’s poignant immigration ballad “Deportees” that the band is making available as a free download in response to Arizona’s recent law targeting illegal immigrants.

The group has put out the song, arranged as a accordion-driven waltz, ahead of a planned protest against the law in Arizona on Saturday, which band members say they will attend.

“We recorded 'Deportees' with Tom Morello and are going down to Arizona on May 29th to stand with all the people courageously fighting back against these unjust and immoral laws,” Outernational’s Miles Solay said in a statement issued this week. “Outernational is about a whole new world, a world without borders and nations. Todos somos illegales. We are all illegals.”

Morello, long known for his own politically provocative music with Rage Against the Machine and the Nightwatchman, said, “Prejudice and ignorance are at the core of Arizona's recent immigration legislation and Woody Guthrie's ‘Deportees’ was written to combat just that sort of prejudice."

Guthrie wrote the song following a 1948 plane crash near Los Gatos Canyon in Central California, killing 28 Mexican migrant workers and four Americans. The New York Times report of the crash listed the names of the three flight crew members and a security guard, but referred to the Mexican workers only as “deportees."

It was originally popularized by Guthrie’s friend Pete Seeger and subsequently covered by numerous artists including Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Guthrie’s son Arlo and Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, the Kingston Trio, Dolly Parton and the Byrds.

Outernational featuring Tom Morello - "Deportee" [MP3]

--Randy Lewis

Coachella 2010: Street Sweeper Social Club covers M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" in the late afternoon

The Street Sweeper Social Club's cover of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" contains multitudes. When guitarist Tom Morello tossed off the opening riff of the song, a sample of the Clash's "Straight to Hell," it was unclear where the song was headed. Would it go to Joe Strummer's "If you can play on the fiddle" line? Or would it land on MIA's "I fly like paper get high like planes"? It was the latter, and SSSC, the rap rock super group featuring Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, and the Coup's incendiary lead singer, Boots Riley, tore into the song. Morello rode that menacing Clash riff while Riley rapped Maya Arulpragasam's words. As the song moved to the expert shotgun-cracks in the chorus, the guitarist moved his instrument like a weapon, blowing out into the audience.

The Social Club proved something important: that rap and rock, such a treacherous pairing given its history of appealing to the testosterone-heavy, shirtless frat-dudes, can be strong and beautiful, smart and angry. The band drew from the hard funk of Living Color, the rolling funk of Funkadelic, the rhythmic funk of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the angular riffage of the Minutemen, the global fury of M.I.A. and, well, Tom Morello. It was potent, vital, and incredibly powerful.

- Randall Roberts

Photo: Boots Riley, left, and Tom Morello of Street Sweeper Social Club performed on the main stage on Friday, the opening day of the three-day Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival on the Empire Polo Club grounds in Indio, Calif. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Ringo Starr's Q&A at the Grammy Museum

The Grammy Museum has landed an impressive roster of artists for its series of question-and-answer and performance sessions in the year since it opened at the L.A. Live complex downtown. Among the participants: Brian Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Annie Lennox, Dwight Yoakam, Herb Alpert, Harry Connick Jr. and Clive Davis, Rage Against the Machine / The Nightwatchman’s Tom Morello and Dave Matthews.

But even in such rarefied company, a former Beatle commands special attention, which helped explain the star-dotted turnout for Tuesday night’s drop-in by Ringo Starr. In the house: guitarist Joe Walsh (an official member of the family since his 2008 marriage to Marjorie Bach, the sister of Starr’s wife, Barbara Bach), George Harrison’s singer-songwriter-guitarist son, Dhani Harrison, E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg, rocker Edgar Winter and Roy Orbison’s widow, Barbara.

“The tickets sold out in eight minutes -- that’s a new record for the museum,” executive director Robert Santelli said during his introduction for Starr, who came as part of promotional efforts for his just-released album, “Y Not.”

Santelli quizzed Starr about serving on the new album as producer for the first time. Looking snappy and trim in a black suit jacket over an Elvis Presley T-shirt he’d just picked up in the museum’s store, dark glasses, black jeans and running shoes, Starr said he had to overcome some trepidation about taking over the production role, but relished realizing that the time had come when “I’ll tell the guitarist what to do.”

He addressed the presence of Paul McCartney on two of the new tracks: singing harmony on the single “Walk With You” and playing bass on “Peace Dream,” a song that invokes the name and longtime peace message of John Lennon. “He understands my drumming,” Starr deadpanned, “because we used to play together.”

Rage Against the Machine hold event to fight homelessness ... and Simon Cowell

If Rage Against the Machine's live show on Wednesday is to be believed, the only societal plague as bad as homelessness is Simon Cowell.

The "American Idol" host was the villain of a rare get-together for the Los Angeles rock group. The audio was broadcast live on BBC "Radio 5 Live." A camera crew was also present, so expect footage to eventually show up online along with a possible DVD release.

The concert was to promote the band's single, "Killing in the Name" -- which is actually a song from 1992. In a good ol' British romp, Rage Against the Machine is pitting the 17-year-old track against a single by Joe McElderry, the Cowell-backed pop singer, for the title of Britain's No. 1 Christmas single.

Rage Against the Machine's merry battleground has mostly been on Facebook, where fans are rallying for "Killing in the Name." Bad news for McElderry, who won Cowell's "X Factor" British reality TV show -- his cutesy song is trailing.

Now, we get the whole benefiting homeless thing, and sure, Cowell is a twit, but what's the big deal?

Rage guitarist Tom Morello is publicly expressing his sickness of all the manufactured ballads and the dumbing down of popular music. Yeah, we get that junk in the States, too, old chap.

Venting about Cowell, the band's frontman Zach de la Rocha told NME, "He seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on television and has a unique position of capturing the attention of people on television, but also the airwaves."

Paul McCartney, one of the biggest pop stars of all time and one who has appeared on that "X Factor" program, chimed in, saying, "It would be kind of funny if Rage Against the Machine got it, because it would prove a point."

Funny is right. We're going to grab a cup of tea, and watch merrily as the machine gets raged against.

-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian

Photo: Kiko Huesca / EPA