RR 2.5.07

Red greetings to everyone on International Workers' Day (May Day)!, which was yesterday. I hope none of you showed up to work...! I've not yet had to time to look at much news/reports on the events yesterday, two notables is that there was some kind of police attack against protestors in LA, & that it was the 20th Revolutionary May Day in Berlin. As you may know, the day's history as proletarian struggle day stems from events in Chicago in 1886 (ironically as US is one of only countries to not officially recognise the day in some form), and stemming from those events it began to be celebrated as an annual thing in an organised way in Berlin the next year. During years of Nazi fascism & DDR revisionist 'social-fascism' the day was warped, until in 1987 some people revived it as a day for the people to rebel against the capitalist system, & ever since it's been days of spirited marches & nights of cobblestone vs tear-gas battles. Anyway when I get some time I'll probably post some blogs about how it went this year around the world.

So for the holiday we've got 3 versions of the international proletariat's anthem, "L'internationale": a folksy Italian version, a rockin Chinese version, & a throat-singin Tuvan version (Tuva is in Central Asia, within Russia borders). I put them at the end of the playlist; in retrospect I probably should've done these last month for build up to the day rather than now it's over, but anyway revolution is all year round, right?

May 5 is also the very first anniversary of Revolution Radio, so there's some music about music. And not that crap with some fool rappin about how he such a good rapper. (Which always makes me think, I'd like to see some American Idol type shit where they sing about how many octaves they can hit or whatever...) Anyway songs about "the scene", interplay of politics & music, etc. Classics like Op Ivy's "Sound System" & Dead Prez's "It's bigger than hip-hop", as well as stuff you may never have heard from Palestinian hip-hoppers DAM to Swedish punks Randy to Basque dance/dub man Fermin Muguruza, & more... Within that is a song from new & fucking excellent debut album by The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello of RATM).

Diné/Navajo rockers Blackfire also just released a fucking excellent album yesterday, stay tuned next month for a song or two from that (as well as some requests which didn't fit into themes this month, sorry).

theme: music about music
theme: "L'internationale"

1. DAM - Hibunâ Ishtrûnâ
2. The Nightwatchman - Battle Hymns
3. Fermin Muguruza - FM 99.00 Dub Manifest
4. Operation Ivy - Sound System
5. Randy - Red banner rockers
6. Ozomatli - Cuando Canto
7. Down By Law - Nothing Good On The Radio
8. Steve Earle - F the CC
9. Asian Dub Foundation - Dub Mentality
10. Bad Religion - A World Without Melody
11. Public Enemy - How To Kill A Radio Consultant
12. Refused - New noise
13. Schleprock - We need an anthem
14. Les Partisans - Radio Rebelle
15. dead prez - it's bigger than hip-hop
16. Against All Authority - Silence Is Golden But Duct Tape Is Silver
17. Intro5pect - RKN.RLL
18. Rage Against The Machine - Bombtrack
19. L'internazionale {download}
20. Táng Cháo - Yïngtènàxióngnài'êr {download}
21. Xün Xürtu - Internationale (Tuvan version) {download}