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Our Salute to the WTO:

• In the Field at the WTO -- Field Recording in the Line of Fire (Part I) by Christopher DeLaurenti
• Night Trawler Wins Time Off -- In Jail! by Henry Hughes
• Catch and Release: The Anti-Fascist Marching Band by Dennis Rea

Back to February 2000 Articles: Main

Concluding Our Salute to the WTO (April 2000):

• In the Field at the WTO -- Field Recording in the Line of Fire (Part II) by Christopher DeLaurenti

Back to April 2000 Articles: Main

In the Field at the WTO --
Field Recording in the Line of Fire

Musicians have many motivations for venturing out and capturing what happens onto magnetic tape. Some want to emulate the master recordists such as Bernie Krause, whose pristine recordings of exotic locales shimmer with astounding clarity, while others prefer to reap the world's raw audio material for subsequent processing and other sonic subversion. Cloaked in aphorisms, cranky advice, and superstitious ritual, field recording should not be confined to professionals. I think anyone interested in sound and willing to hear the world with new ears should try field recording. I hope sharing my experience recording the World Trade Organization protests on November 30, 1999, will encourage other lovers of sound to take their tape decks into the streets and forests.

Preliminary Thoughts

So how does one make a field recording? Although I am neither an expert audio engineer nor a master recordist, I possess some technique in that art, and, like many artists, continually question what I know, why I know it, and how I mold my knowledge into music. I believe the act and art of self-examination to be more important than practicing with the RECORD button.

Many musicians erroneously assume that expertise with their own recording gear makes them an audio engineer. No. Like many musicians, I have acquired my studio technique piecemeal, and while I can confidently make and master my own recordings, such knowledge rarely transfers to the sonic service of others. A real audio engineer can walk into any properly outfitted studio and, with a bit of poking around, aurally parse the room, mike the drum set, and perhaps even tune the heads. After walking on water, the tonmeisters at Deutsche Grammophon can divine the resonant frequency of a room within 50 hertz, follow any of Stockhausen's scores for the Klavierstücke, and record the Vienna Philharmonic with two microphones.

I couldn't care less about drum sets, which, aside from the guitar, must be the most overplayed and underutilized instrument of our time, and, thanks to the magic of computer-based digital audio extraction (popularly called "ripping"), it is easy to identify supposedly state-of-the-art Classical Music recordings that abound with clumsy edits, poor playing, and fuzzy, recessed, un-live sound. If you want to become an audio engineer, go to school, and/or apprentice at a studio. If you want to shape an aural aesthetic that holistically encompasses recording technology, your music and whatever else you believe about sound, you need to get out in the field and record!

You can make a field recording anywhere. In contrast to studio recording, which transpires under controlled conditions in a fixed space and often at substantial expense, you can make field recordings on the street, in the sewer, at the supermarket, or from your bedroom. Do you need expensive gear? Maybe.

Too Geeked Out Over Gear?

Field recording has undergone a revolution. The abundance of relatively cheap ($500-$1,400) portable battery-powered DAT (digital audio tape) machines, inexpensive digital editing software, and trustworthy sound cards that enable a digital transfer from DAT to the computer with little or no signal degradation has leveled the playing field. Instead of saving up for a DAT, you can use a high-quality portable cassette recorder and still get good sound. With access to a computer, you can scrutinize, dress up, de-noise, edit, assemble, and master your own recordings.

Surprisingly, worthwhile used computers are quite cheap. Do not succumb to the gadget pornography which commands consumers to purchase the latest and most expensive equipment. My audio workhorse, a hoary Pentium 133 MHz PC, is so old that similar systems sell for around $150 -- monitor, mouse and keyboard included. Sound-editing software is also cheap (e.g., Goldwave is $40), or you can skate by with pirated software downloaded from alt.binaries.sounds.utilities, a Usenet newsgroup. Pirated software -- "warez" -- usually works quite well, especially Radium releases, which are touted as "try before you buy"; unless you foolishly try to sell warez to others, the only risks are to your conscience.

Used Mac systems, while generally more reliable, cost more; also the software choices remain comparatively limited. Unlike the PC, the Mac has very few cult applications, i.e., freeware or shareware editors, sound processors, etc. that contain unique features overlooked by the big companies. In an ideal world, computer-based composers should use both systems and have access to a Silicon Graphics SGI to boot, but ignore the partisans and beg, borrow, buy, or steal what you can.

Regardless of the platform, the most important item in a computer-based digital audio editing system is the sound card. If you want clean audio, avoid the Sound Blaster and its misbegotten ilk. Plan to spend at least $250 on a quality sound card with digital I/O. You should only buy a used card if you feel confident that you can test it, a task best left to prodigies and professionals. Manufacturers go in and out of business every week and product lines can vanish overnight, so ask around, visit the public library, read Keyboard and/or Electronic Musician, and cruise the web for reviews. In the Seattle area, the SoniCabal is an excellent resource for finding answers.

Along with a portable tape deck, other ingredients in traditional field recording include headphones, microphones, and a mike boom. I use AKG K240 headphones, a middle-of-the-road studio stalwart. The key to headphones is knowing their limitations, not their chimerical specifications. Use what sounds good to you and feels comfortable on your ears for six hours. Microphones remain the wild card. Some field-recording microphones can be surprisingly expensive, such as the Sennheiser MKH and ME series, yet renting remains an option -- look under Audio or Video Rentals in the Yellow Pages. I use two Audio Technica Pro 37Rs, all-purpose instrument mikes which, excepting mediocre bass response, capture sound quite realistically.

To position microphones in difficult positions such as birds' nests, humming streetlights, or press conferences, professionals use steel telescoping booms which extend and retract several feet. Mike booms cost too much -- $200 and up -- so I strap my mikes to a 2-foot Y-shaped plastic tube. What should a beginner use? I have long arms, so for me, length is not an issue. If you can't scavenge your own boom, or need microphone clips to affix mikes to your homemade boom, try Bradley Broadcast (www.bradleybroadcast.com) or a local music store. Regardless of which boom you use, you will get practice keeping your hands steady and staying silent while recording.

Another Approach

Do you need to spend thousands of dollars on "name" gear and fret over the preceding paragraphs? Only if you so desire. You may want to join the other revolution in field recording. Many recordists, eschewing high-priced gear and traditional techniques, embrace and incorporate wind noise, boom rustling, and even the off-mike intrusions of voices and incongruent sounds into their work. Compelling recordings in this genre such as DogPoundFoundSound supplant the mythic objectivity of the recorded document with the audible drama of capturing the sound as it happened: What was poor technique becomes an essential element of the sonic experience. Inadmissible tools become musical instruments: handheld minicassette recorders with onboard microphones and their awkward 1970s antecedents, portable cassette recorders, can be pressed into service with satisfying results.

In music, flaws and shortcomings are inevitable; make them your own and you can compensate for lackluster gear, sloppy mistakes, and underconfidence.

What about editing your recordings? Some recordists have forsaken editing while others, reveling in the flexibility of computer-based digital audio, cut and paste with abandon. Pragmatic recordists view editing and other sonic skullduggery as a necessary evil in our noisy world. Aural idealists hold that tampering with the moment denudes a recording of spiritual power. Editing is a personal choice dictated by you and your material, so do what you want.

Some Questions

Regardless of your gear or your aesthetic approach, I believe there are vital questions to ask before venturing out into the field to record. First, what do I want from the act of recording? Second, what do I plan to do with the material? And third, to paraphrase Stravinsky who, when twitching at a concert listening to music he felt was wasting his time, would ask sotto voce, "who needs it?"

Asking can be more important than finding answers, and realistic self-examination can save you trouble. For example, if you want to capture a pristine recording of the verdant plains of Somewhere Far Away, using a cheap microphone, a sleazy minicassette recorder, and lots of AA batteries will only inflame your temper and break your heart. Knowing why you want to record the verdant plains of Somewhere Far Away and questioning your desire for immaculate sound might expose your assumptions about the nature of Ideal Sound or determine if you should even bother!

What did I want from the WTO protest? I had no idea what to expect. I was told "this is gonna be big." Should I do a documentary and interview people? Sound bites wear thin and after aggressively editing the countless verbal ejaculations of my cocaine, I had no interest in revisiting that technique. As a recordist, I wanted an experience that would test my limits. As a listener, and knowing that drummers and other unruly noisemakers would be present, I suspected that the huge crowd would serve up a sonic feast. I decided to try and make an orthophonic "you are there" recording. I resolved to remain aloof, not speak to anyone, and simply record.

What did I plan to do with the material? I imagined that presenting the recording at a concert without any visuals could be stirring and evocative. Diffusing (a fancy term for the live "performance" of tape music which seems preferable to "tape playback," which erroneously suggests laziness) the recording with four, eight, or more speakers could be an aurally ravishing experience.

So, with an ear for a possible public presentation, I pondered the dreaded question: "Who needs it?" My hunch was that while videographers would be out in force, few would focus on recording sound. I have not been impressed with the onboard microphones grafted onto video cameras, and when forced to choose between sweeping the camera like a brush for good sound or shifting the camera slightly for a stable image (and an immobile sound), most camera people will opt for the latter. Alas, too many journalists record in mono. ("Listen kid, this stuff goes on AM radio, which ain't stereo.") So as a purely documentary activity, my recording equipment might yield some worthwhile audio for someone in the future.

Answering "who needs it?" as a composer proved easy. I felt confident that my ear could telescope several hours of recordings into a worthwhile musical experience. Even if the piece I planned to forge from the recordings stunk, at least the sounds would be interesting to hear -- once.

Preparations

Although I was well acquainted with issues surrounding the WTO and legislated globalization, it had been more than 10 years since I attended a protest. On November 29, I fired up my browser and found many web pages detailing what to expect and what to bring "in case things get bad." The pages warned of possible police brutality, tear gas, and the deadly undertow of surging crowds. Those who wished to participate in civil disobedience were exhorted to leave their ID at home and instructed in jail solidarity. I also checked the weather. I have never trusted meteorologists: As a native, I can smell oncoming rain and discerned that it would rain tomorrow.

Later that night, I dressed for a trial run. Dressing in layers, I strapped my portable DAT recorder, a battery powered Tascam DA-P1, over one shoulder and my battery case across my other shoulder. My battery case is actually a stylish 1960s Italian vanity purse purchased at a garage sale for $1; I would have bargained further but, despite my own impoverishment, the poor souls needed my money. Alongside the batteries, I inserted a spare notepad, several pens and pencils, and an empty DAT cassette case. I also donned a backpack containing a liter of bottled water (an antidote for thirst and pepper spray) and plenty of food: stomach-stuffing bagels and cream cheese as well as small energy-giving mandarin oranges. My backpack would also offer protection to my rear, albeit that of thin armor.

Over my equipment and backpack, I draped a thick, heavy-hooded green-and-black coat. Endowed with capacious pockets, I stuffed my coat with the essentials. A roll of blue tack-down tape: Scotch #2090 half-inch, which costs about two dollars and can tape down microphones, cover surfaces, and plug leaks. Several years ago, I found my first roll in a gutter and was grateful to discover a sticky tape without the gummy residue and bombastic adhesion of duct tape. Additionally, I brought wool gloves with finger holes, which afford the digital dexterity needed to press buttons, as well as extra DAT tapes, headphones, and a piece of thin black foam to drape over my mikes as protection against the rain.

Packing my pockets created extra insulation for my DAT deck, which I covered with a washcloth to absorb any rain. A friend had offered his Gulf War-era Army helmet but I refused, thinking it might annoy and provoke both demonstrators and police. I casually accepted some Burning Man-tested goggles and taped up the air holes.

Swathed in equipment -- most of it hidden under my coat -- I resembled a pro football player, not a preferred target of law enforcement. Still, I decided that my steel-toed brown leather boots would be the best footwear for the expedition. I stepped outside and tested my load. I could still run, but sprinting would be impossible.

I also cultivated a Mama Bear mystique towards my gear. Much of the equipment was not mine. Unlike a professional microphone boom, which can serve as a club or a spear, my boom, a plastic tube reinforced with a dowel, would not be a good weapon. Envisioning myself beset by enemies, I imagined sundering ears with my jaws, grinding my teeth into eyeballs, repeatedly slamming any opponent's head into the closest solid surface and committing other cannibalistic mayhem suitable for thugs and miscreants -- including those in uniform.

On November 30, an eye-blistering hour before dawn, . . .

(Look for part two of In the Field at the WTO in the April
issue of the Tentacle.)

-- Christopher DeLaurenti

Christopher DeLaurenti serves as Ship's Sturgeon aboard the Tentacle. He is a composer, performs in the free improv electronics duo rebreather, hosts the Sonar Map every Wednesday at 10 pm on KSER 90.7 FM, and helps organize performances of adventurous music in Seattle.

Tentacle Night Trawler Wins Time Off -- In Jail!

Truth be told, 'tis I, Tentacle Night Trawler Henry Hughes, who writes most of this turgid editorial introduction to each issue of our magazine. I reveal this because this month I thought I should add a personal account of my experiences during the recent World Trade Organization demonstrations, especially since some of you have heard tell of my ordeal through one channel or another.

I'm glad to report that I'm doing reasonably well after being arrested with some 200 others at Westlake Park and spending four days in state custody. (Apparently, I was arrested for standing in that park after someone "in authority" decided to revoke what were purported to be my rights to freely speak and associate. The authorities can suspend those rights when it suits them, which clearly means I have no such rights, nor do you.) I've been told my charges are on their way toward being dropped, which makes my arrest even more of a cruel joke than it had already been. Now for the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey is so fond of saying.

Activism, Inc.

I've been an activist and publicist on what passes for this country's left for a good portion of my adult life. (I'm 44.) But for nearly five years I've shied away from what I call organizational activism. It was my experience organizing with a large labor union, along with meeting (and reading) some critical thinkers who forced me to answer some tough questions, that led me to recognize that almost every bit of the left resembles exactly what I now know I should be fighting: centralized, hierarchical, top-heavy organizations that only pay lip service to their stated agenda and objectives.

Even if they once actually worked toward realizing their ostensibly decent objectives, most of those organizations, like nearly every organization, have long since focused in on their one true objective (no matter to what degree they may be aware of it): to gain converts and raise money in order to continue to exist or grow. Problematic means and inegalitarian structures rarely justify noble ends. In other words, groups on the left are in essence the same as the governments and corporations they claim to seek to change or overthrow; they've become just another facet of capitalism, which seems to have the remarkable ability to subsume most everything it touches.

Ragging on Reform

The above explains in part why I stayed away from the planning stages of the WTO protests. Yes, I understood that the Direct Action Network (DAN) processes were to be decentralized and non-hierarchical, with consensus-based decision making, but I'm fairly skeptical of such claims these days, and I had even more fundamental issues with the protest's objectives, to the extent that I could understand them. I'm not very interested in opposing any one aspect of late capitalism (such as the WTO) simply because its effects are more egregious than the last one; it's all the same hideous monster to me. Nor do I care to participate in efforts to reform our economic system or government, as I find them fatally flawed.

Plus, no matter what your activist goals, government and corporate targets abound 24 - 7 - 365, especially here in Seattle, the U.S. hub of the Pacific Rim and one of the high churches of high tech. So what's the big deal about the WTO? It's no surprise that the folks with money and power (known in leftist jargon as "capital") have attained more and more sweeping powers with which to better manage capitalism's desperate, grow-or-die march into the abyss. It is capitalism itself that needs to be opposed and eradicated; too much focus on its latest, greatest scam is in my view misguided and counterproductive.

Call this a contradiction if you must, but of course a WTO ministerial is a big deal, as it's a special opportunity to confront capital and its able facilitator, the state, at one of their self-designated precious moments, in the very place they're chanting the sacred incantations and mixing the latest potions. Anyway, I knew I'd just show up and pitch in no matter what. Finally, you just go -- qualms and all -- because it's "the right thing to do," so I did. And the events of Tuesday, November 30, along with the rest of the week and its aftermath, were a truly reinvigorating experience for me, though they now (paradoxically?) also serve to deflate me by reaffirming all my apprehensions about organizations and their compromised agendas.

Protest Plus: Reclaiming the Streets

As you likely already know the details of the protests, I will limit this tale to my own experience. On Tuesday, my partner and I made it downtown a tad later than we'd hoped (around 8 am), and what we found was truly exhilarating. There is not enough praise in the world to do justice to the stunning protest preparations and execution on the part of DAN and others. Already thousands of people had occupied key downtown streets (with some locked down in intersections), and had very nearly closed off the perimeter around the Westlake Convention Center and Paramount Theater (such a huge area!), where capital's most powerful arm was attempting in vain to open its critical meeting.

We saw immediately that we were needed to shore up the blockade at the southwest corner of the Sheraton (close to Sixth and Union), where delegates were still slipping in, so we locked arms with strangers and beckoned others to join us. A large group of hooded anarchists had heard the call, too, and they proceeded to lock arms to block the entrance to the Sheraton's underground parking garage, bravely placing themselves extremely close to riot police just above them on a hill. (As with much else I observed that day, this contradicts how anarchists were portrayed in corporate media and in some leftist accounts, as cowards exposing other "peaceful" protesters to take police retaliation for their "provocations.") Our portion of the line even rebuffed an attempt by a well-organized wedge of delegates who attempted to use brute strength to penetrate us.

Police Repression

Not long after our Sheraton blockade shut down what was likely the last remaining entrance to the meeting, we saw former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper up on the hill, assessing the situation and conferring with his commanders on the scene. Not too much later we realized that Stamper must have been there issuing orders to violently disrupt this extremely effective protest. My partner and I had left the line and were standing with hundreds of others in the Sixth and Union intersection just before 10 AM when, with no provocation or warning, riot cops ran through a line of people beating them with night sticks. Just after that group of goons had established their position in the intersection, they inexplicably headed back outside the intersection to rejoin their squad, as if they'd just wanted to bang some heads or maybe test the resistance of the rugged, well-armed protesters. (Of course, I'm fooling: the demonstrators were the usual ragtag bunch of violence-abhorring folks.)

The protesters then sat down, forming a line of people three-deep across Union on the side away from the Sheraton. Again without warning, the cops doused them with pepper spray using fire extinguisher--sized canisters, and it was pretty clear they relished the chance to put their recent riot training into practice. There were a few screams of pain and shouts of incredulity at the police, but the well-prepared demonstrators were amazingly calm as they steadfastly stood their ground. But then came the first volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets, fired from atop assault vehicles on the Sheraton side of Union, and protesters were forced to flee the intersection. We watched as a young woman walked calmly up to the police, only to be shot in the leg from about 20 feet away. She went down howling in pain.

We had just observed the first use of organized police violence on what was to be a very long day of it. We spent the rest of the day exhilarated at the effective presence of scores of thousands of protesters from all over the world -- and terrified by the senseless and unprovoked violence used on them by the police. I want to be sure to say that no photo or video image can possibly capture what I saw in downtown Seattle that Tuesday. I stood in the midst of thousands of people reclaiming the streets and, by virtue of my height, I saw thousands more no matter which way I turned. There's nothing like it, and if we had been organized, determined, and willing to accept the consequences, we could have resisted and beaten back the police, who were terribly disorganized, underprepared, and overwhelmingly outnumbered. We could have had our way with the streets for much longer and much more effectively, radicalizing ourselves and others to an even greater degree than what transpired that day (which I do not mean to denigrate). Maybe one day enough of us will recognize the need for such a step, along with the potential to win.

Back to N30. By late afternoon the rampant use of tear gas and concussion grenades had people reeling and retreating. By early evening, after receiving orders to clear the streets under a state of emergency, the police were gassing, pepper-spraying, and shooting point-blank anyone and everyone. My partner and I struggled for quite some time to get a bus home, finding it impossible to avoid the tear gas that seemed to be wafting everywhere, even well away from the downtown core. Riding home, we cringed as we discussed just how repressive the police state might become the following day, what with so many fewer people on the street, the President's arrival, and the authorities' embarrassment at how successful the protests had been. Sadly, we were right.

Police Repression Reprise

My partner had to work on Wednesday, so we parted late Tuesday night. I set the alarm for 5:30 am but was awake and rarin' to go by 5. I should have been going to work later that day, but instead I called the planet in sick and headed back downtown. A fellow protester I met on my way up Pike Street shared a telling story, one that set the tone for the day. His bus downtown had been boarded by a police officer, who immediately targeted this fellow (and no others) due to his appearance. "What are you doing downtown today?" "I work downtown, man," he averred, assuming that had he not lied, he would have been taken off the bus and asked to go home or be arrested.

I had hoped for weeks in advance that downtown would be a carnival all week, but Wednesday morning the streets had a desperate, not-quite-business-as-usual appearance. Cars and trucks had returned to pump out their poisons on nearly every street save Pike in the vicinity of the Convention Center. I saw police action at Westlake Park, but there wasn't much really going on, so I listened to activists' reports of where the action was, and headed for Eighth and Lenora. I found a few dozen people in a tense showdown with scads of police (on foot, on horses, and in assault vehicles), who were following and exceeding orders to keep protesters out of a so-called no-protest zone. They were already assaulting and arresting people well outside that zone; it was quite clear that for the rest of the week the "law" would show itself for what it is -- a tool that those in power define arbitrarily based on their needs at the moment.

Disingenuous Order to Disperse

Long story short, we marched back to Sixth and Pike, with our ranks swelling into the hundreds. When it became clear we would be attacked there, we headed for Westlake Park and sat down. It was probably not yet 9 AM, and what seemed to be the remaining force of demonstrators was already surrounded by a huge, well-armed police force bent on quashing dissent; the WTO protests seemed to me to be over. (Of course, I was wrong: People's perseverance and bravery in the face of oppression resulted in wonderful, creative actions throughout that week.) For the first time in over 24 hours, I actually heard an order to disperse and, not having planned to be arrested, I attempted to comply.

Seattle's finest told those of us who were willing to disperse to stand at the wall of the stores bordering the park, so around 40 or 50 of us stood there -- surrounded by riot cops and mounted patrols -- watching as another 150 seated in the park's center were arrested and loaded onto Metro Transit buses. The police, including the captain on the scene, continued to assure us we'd be released just as soon as they were done arresting our comrades. But the filthy pigs turned out to be liars, which is after all part of their job.

Jail Cells Provided by Metro Transit

Instead of releasing us after dragging off the folks in the center, they rushed us, zip-cuffed us, and hauled us onto buses. We were then on our way to a makeshift processing center at Sand Point, where hundreds of us spent the day resisting at every step of the way. If I were to recount my experience of 15 hours on the bus with 73 dedicated activists of many stripes, you wouldn't be reading much about music in this issue of our magazine. Let it suffice to say that the solidarity was inspiring, and it not only enabled me to get through a harrowing experience, but also taught me some lessons I sorely needed to learn.

By 2 am the following morning, the police were ready to get us off the bus by most any means necessary. After driving the bus out of sight of television crews on the scene, officers in riot gear stormed the bus, picked up one person by the hair, used pain holds of various kinds on him and others, and calmly and methodically pepper-sprayed another in the face. They could have simply picked up and dragged inside the people who weren't cooperating, but I guess that wouldn't be in keeping with another part of the pig's job description: to render a preliminary verdict and dole out punishment on the spot. Anyway, by 7 AM Thursday, after being awake for over 24 hours and feeling pretty damn addled, I was in a jail cell at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, charged with the heinous crimes of "failure to disperse" and "pedestrian interference."

Jail is mighty boring. It also prevents one from carrying out well-laid plans, such as fucking up the WTO meeting as often and as creatively as possible, along with supporting others to do the same. Any other three days in jail would have been an inconvenience; these three days were a nightmarish hell of impotence because, for some odd reason, the WTO didn't decide to relocate its headquarters to Seattle, which meant that by the time I was sprung early Sunday morning, they were long gone.

The Redemption of Activism, Inc?

My experiences on the streets, on the bus, and in jail forced me to rethink my stance on the activist left. The undeniable success of the protests, along with many DAN activists' demonstrated commitments to keeping things "dirty" and decentralized, could not be ignored. I resolved to cautiously approach getting more involved; I even argued against the skepticism of some of my nay-saying pals who warned me I'd be disappointed. Despite my convictions about how systems operate, I naïvely wanted DAN to transcend those problems, to be what an organization cannot be.

In the weeks that followed I attended some large general meetings where little happened, and not much was actually discussed; I was also going to legal meetings regarding my ongoing court battle. My first three offers to volunteer were roundly ignored. (In their defense, most of the DAN folks had no idea I was an experienced organizer who could take a lot of work off their hands; plus, they were swamped and couldn't keep up with all the interest generated by WTO week.) What was worse, though, was the fact that no one seemed to want to have an actual conversation about their underlying political orientations and the overall objectives of their work. I began to sense an old tendency rearing its ugly head: Nothing matters as long as the immediate work gets done; a question is an inconvenience rather than a chance to bring someone along or, gulp, learn something. DAN had become an organization, with the agenda of self-perpetuation, rather than a loose tool for fomenting revolution.

Meltdown

What finally sent me away for good was DAN's coalition-building agenda. I had been helping to plan what was to be a huge action targeted at Microsoft, a company that has somehow remained pretty much untouched by direct action despite screwing thousands of its workers, exploiting prison labor, and making products that, in the name of corporate efficiency and standardization, make automatons out of millions of people all over the world. (Yeah, we could add plenty more issues to that list.) But organized labor, an important component of the DAN coalition, pulled the plug on that one. Despite DAN's previous public call for a major shutdown of Microsoft in February, labor, in a "pre-meeting" with DAN organizers (without the input of another 20-plus activists who'd been helping to organize the action), was able to use its clout to downgrade the "shutdown" to a symbolic presence. A week later, a plan emerged for a huge action protesting Kaiser Aluminum's lockout of some of its union workers. Poof! DAN had gone from protesting the capitalist system to maybe getting some highly paid workers their jobs back.

This terrible contradiction between ostensibly open, inclusive processes, which some organizations insist they have, and the reality of making decisions outside that process, is exactly why I left organizational activism five years ago. But I can understand how well-meaning activists fall into such traps in the name of expediency or pragmatism.

But why the cozying up to labor unions in the first place? I believe the DAN folks are being disingenuous in the name of coalition-building: They're not coming clean that their politics are an order of magnitude more radical than that of organized labor. It's been a long time since big labor has advocated taking the power out of the hands of capital, and they're sure as hell not going to just come out and say that much of what they do for a living destroys the planet and perpetuates hierarchical power relations, which they seem to have no critique of anyway. So why must there be coalitions of organizations with such wildly conflicting agendas?

To get even more blunt, organized labor, along with plenty of other reformist groups, will always hold back those who advocate revolutionary change. They'll always say, "Not now," or "Not yet," or "That will jeopardize _______." Whatever fills in that blank almost invariably translates to that group's place at power's table, or how they're portrayed by the media and thus perceived by "the masses." It's not a stretch to see that, if radicals listen to such pleadings, they'll always be prevented from taking direct action that, as so amply demonstrated on N30, truly radicalizes most anyone who dares to get close to it.

This account of my WTO protest experiences must end here. Lest my rant leaves you thinking otherwise, I'm more hopeful about social change than ever, but we need to be clear about the looming obstacles and where we disagree on objectives, approaches, and tactics. Wishful thinking doesn't get us onto the same page, and we must be able to identify our structures' resemblance of what we should be fighting. And if I can't ask questions and disagree, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

-- Henry Hughes

Catch & Release:

Anti-Fascist Marching Band,
Paramount Theater steps, Seattle, November 30, 1999

At a party shortly after WTO week, a friend of mine said, "They should have brought out all the improvising musicians against the police -- that would have stopped them!" Being no fan of free improvisation, she figured that all those "awful" bleats and blats and squeals would surely have put the armored storm troopers to flight. She quickly apologized, afraid that she'd offended me, but I'm used to that sort of dismissive attitude toward adventurous music. I replied that her remark was far more cogent than she realized, because experimental music is much closer in its aims and methods to the radical spirit of the demonstrations than any other form of music you can name.

Like many of the WTO demonstrators, some thoughtful improvising and experimental musicians advocate the abolition of outmoded and restrictive structures of organization, in this case musical structures that have long since outlived their usefulness. As one musician friend put it, improvised music at its best is a demonstration of anarchy in action -- self-governance and collective action manifested in musical terms. Yet ironically, most of the music heard during the WTO events, from the Freedom March to the rhythms of anarchist drum troupes, were based on the same bankrupt musical structures that have been promulgated for centuries by oppressive organizations ranging from the Roman Catholic Church to major record labels. The occasion demanded music that mirrored the protestors' radicalism; thankfully, Seattle's Anti-Fascist Marching Band delivered the goods with their guerrilla concert on the steps of the Paramount Theater during the heaviest day of demonstrations.

Formed in 1982 by Chris Fulsaas, Memo, Pete Leinonen, Eric Muhs, Craig Flory, and other activist Seattle musicians, the Anti-Fascist Marching Band lay dormant for many years until the massive WTO demonstrations provided the ideal opportunity for a reunion. This time, the city's out-music community was ably represented by a contingent that included Angelina Baldoz, Amy Denio, Mike Daugherty, Craig Flory, Scott Granlund, Paul Hoskin, Brad Houser, Jim Knodle, Jessica Lurie, Adam McCollum, Jeff McGrath, Bill Moyer, Greg Powers, Charley Rowan, Bev Setzer, Skerik, and others. Inimitable Seattle street musician Richard Peterson even put in an appearance, "counting off the band" as if such a thing were possible amid the tumult.

Earlier in the afternoon, the AFMB had joined in the Big March from Seattle Center to the downtown core, eliciting whoops and hollers from onlookers along the entire route. Never was there a more appropriate setting for this marching band, or an audience more sympathetic to its message. With a curious blend of ensemble precision and raggedy-ass cacophony, the band presented a motley bag of marching tunes and workers' anthems like The Internationale, liberally spiced with unbridled improvisation. I flushed with pride at seeing my comrades in music contribute to this historic coalition.

The marchers eventually reached the downtown core, where fusillades of tear gas and rubber bullets were now the order of the day. Panicked parade marshals attempted to turn marchers back toward Seattle Center, but many preferred to remain at the barricades, including the AFMB, who gathered beneath the marquee of the Paramount -- the very place where WTO organizers were attempting to conduct their opening ceremony that day. With hundreds of onlookers egging them on, the musicians let loose a raucous rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner that would have done Hendrix proud. All the while, a deadpan majorette twirled a baton. I laughed to think that these outcats had finally gotten their chance to play the lofty Paramount.

Drawn by the music, the crowd swelled to fill the intersection. More musicians arrived, and a jubilant atmosphere prevailed until six mounted police pushed their way under the marquee and tried to scatter the musicians. A chill rippled through the crowd. But the players continued blowing at full tilt, with saxophonist Brad Hauser serenading the cops with the Star Wars storm trooper theme. Just when things were about to turn ugly, the drummers suddenly whirled and hammered chaotically on their drums, causing the startled horses to bolt away. Without missing a beat, trumpeter Jim Knodle kicked into a spirited version of Camptown Races as the unnerved horse patrol disappeared around the corner. The crowd bellowed its approval, and the cops made no further attempt to disperse the musicians. Unfortunately, one musician was slightly injured when a horse stepped on her foot.

Like everyone else, the Anti-Fascist Marching Band was eventually driven from the elastic "no protest zone" under wave after wave of excessive police violence. You know the rest of the story. Hats off to all of these musicians for putting their hearts where their horns are, and for representing Seattle's creative musicians so splendidly on that memorable day. As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal commented in a front-page article, "I'd hate to see anyone try to get the Anti-Fascist Marching Band to march in lock-step."

-- Dennis Rea