Rock And Roll Dope

ROCK AND ROLL DOPE

Up played for the Scapegoat Six in Kennedy Square last Tuesday (see story page 3) and after running a bunch of errands around the Motor City all afternoon we stopped for a breather at the offices of Detroit's righteous rock and roll rag, Creem magazine. The heat that day was so powerful that it made your head spin if you stayed out too long in the sun; and we had been out there too long and were plenty grateful to be able to share same cool tokes, relax, and rap with brother Creemster Dave Karsh before heading back to Ann Arbor.

Before we had been there too long Dave had us talking about the "pop music" business and the effect it's had on the people who've "made it" in the biz. "Pop success is just like a poison," Dave was saying, and we could really relate to that -- all of us have seen too many of the so-called "revolutionary" or "people's" bands lose sight of where their people are really at and go off into the hip scene ozone that bro. John Sinclair talked about in last week 's SUN-- that weird place where Country Joe and the Rolling Stones live in their mansions along the Mediterranean in the South of France, where Mick Jagger writes about shooting up smack/death and Paul McCartney writes about his second wife, where bands refuse to play at benefits or even in ballrooms in favor of the big moneymaking "shows" at places like Olympia or Cobo Hall, and where all the people are expected to pay their 5 or 6 or 7 dollars to sit back in their chairs (no dancing!) and watch the parade of stars. When you think of all the stuff that these bands could be doing with their money, success, and power it's really awful to see them rip up their roots in their people 's daily lives and get sucked into the ugly world of pop biz. ROCK AND ROLL IMPERIALISM! U-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-gh!

Anyway, Dave was asking us how we planned to deal with the whole pop scene- he was asking for both Up and Creem, actually, since Creem is about to sign a big distribution deal which will easily make them as popular as Rolling Stone and the other national music papers -- and he wanted to know if we thought that we were really prepared to fight off the bogus effects of wide exposure that have ruined so many rock and roll people that have come before us. We had to say that we feel we are ready; but we were really too wasted to explain what we meant fully, and I 'd like to take this time right now to run the whole thing down at once.

Even though we haven't had what you might call the biggest kind of "popular success" as yet, Up has been together and playing consistently for quite awhile now (just about three years) and I'll have to say first off that the only reason we've been able to keep kicking 'em out for so long is the way we live. Yup, we owe all the success we've had to good old fashioned collective/COMMUNAL LIVING, folks, and we're absolutely serious when we say that it's the most important thing for any band, for any group of people that work together, to get hip to and put into practice in some form or another - if you want to keep at what you're doing and continue to make it better and more exciting to the people you 're trying to serve and for your ownselves, too. We've spent a whole lot of time talking about and working on new ways to integrate our lives and our music as fully as we can - the fact of our living and jamming together under the same roof is really the most important thing that's ever happened to us.

Before I get into a big trip on communal living (and even though I could go on for pages and pages about it because it's so far out and beautiful, I really want to save that rap for another time) I have to say that the reason why we stress the communality of our lives as the base of our attack is because we think it's something that can be totally useful for everybody, because it puts together everything all of us do in the most complete manner possible. More and more people are getting into COMMUNEism every day - it's a righteous trend that 's got to continue - and we hope that our experience with it can be useful to you all.

But, dig - what really answers bro. Dave's question, what I really want to use up this space on, is how we put it all together: the ORGANIZATION of the band. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to brag or woof about any of this shit - but the organization of the revolutionary rock and roll band is something that the 22 people that live and work out of this house have used as the model for the organization of this political party and all of it's functions, including the organization of this newspaper. So it's not something that's necessarily limited to Up or to rock and roll bands even; it's something all of us can and should check out simply because it can be so effective.

The first killer thing about the organization of a rock and roll band is the way it takes the separate ideas and energies of each individual musician and concentrates them into the solid, whole thing that is the sight and sound of the band playing together on stage. Each musician is responsible for his or her instrument and his or her own part in each song and gets it down on his or her own -- the synthesis is accomplished at practice where each player combines his or her own part with everybody else in preparation for the upcoming gigs. Each brother or sister talks about the mistakes made at the last job; puts out new ideas for new tunes and arrangements; discusses the next gigs - what music the people will want to hear and how much can be done in the time before the job in order to make the necessary changes in the performance; and then the whole band gets to work on what they decide has to be done.

The beauty of the communal rock and roll band is that these practice sessions can happen every day, since all that's needed is for the musicians to set aside some time each day to slip into the practice room right there at home and kick 'em out. And the discussion of the music can go on all the time, too, since the band spends most of its time together in one place.

The revolutionary rock and roll band takes it one step further- the TOTALLY communal experience. No one "star" musician is allowed to dominate the music, as no decision is made without total agreement from every player in the band. When the band goes on stage, there are no hassles about what tunes are played or how, no resentments about what comes first or who plays how loud because everyone brings out all their ideas in full discussion at the practice session, before the gig. Each musician has a different function, but each has an equal say and an equal share in the overall sound, Everyone knows what is happening all the time and why; there is no confusion, only the sound of a completely unified musical unit.

As I said earlier, we've used a lot of what we've learned with Up in all our work. One example of the way we've expanded the organizational form of the band is our weekly housemeetings - which are just like practice sessions in that there is full discussion and agreement on everything that goes on, including a full rap on the band. Everyone get to offer their criticisms of the music and make suggestions. And full and open criticism of the band is something that we try to make happen all the time outside the house meetings, too -- with everyone in the community that hears us as well as with the people we live with everyday. We've found that it can be a struggle sometimes to overcome our honky conditioning that has taught us not to say anything that might "offend" somebody (or ask for something that might be "offensive" to us!), but above and beyond that our experience has shown that putting into practice old brother Mao's slogan "Say everything you know and say it without reserve!" is the best way to find out what music the people want to hear and how to correct our mistakes in making that music.

Now, it may seem pretty strange for a rock and roll band to be pushing the whole ORGANIZATION thing so hard, but we think it's the key to the solution of the problem that Dave Marsh was talking to us about - as a matter of fact it's the key to the solutions for just about all the problems that are facing this new Rainbow Culture trying to exist in the midst of, and take over from the old honky one that we were all brought up in.

Let 's check out our rock and roll bands again for a minute:

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ROCK AND ROLL DOPE

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All the bands that have been tricked into the pop star ruse have begun to go downhill away from the people as they got further and further away from the real spirit of communal togetherness. Even though most bands didn't start out living together in ths same house, it's obvious that when those musicians stopped hanging out and started spending less and less time together -- as they got more money and were able to afford their own Individual apartments and villas and psychedelic Porsches and Rolls Royces - as they started practicing and playing Iess together, their bands and their music either fell apart completely or began to get more and more dominated by one or two pop star egos in the group. And as the musicians got further into their individual selves, they got more selfish and greedy, and the whole thing just got worse and worse .

It's because of Up's permanent commitment to the most together, COMMUNEist life/music that we can possibly attain that we feel that we won't fall into the whole pop star trick that so many of our right on brothers and sisters have sunk into in the past. And if you think differently, or have anything at all to say about the band, feel free to come right back on us about it through the SUN or where ever you see us on the street or playing the jams.

But, much more important than just this one rock and roll band is the effect that killer stompdown organized collective activity can have on everything all of us are trying to do as a new people all over the planet . We really think that organization is the secret to real success, and we hope that you'll be able to use these words in the same way that you 'll be able to use our music on your record player someday soon -- everyday, in everything we ever try to do together. RAINBOW POWER TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE! ! !