Today was sort of a down day for me- on "vacation" this week with lots of things to do and no interest in getting anything done. I turned on Music TV after the news was just too depressing. Children in Iraq blown up after getting toys from soldiers, people dying in typhoons and the entire rice crop of Bangladesh being destroyed, people dying because they didn't wear seatbelts, houses being foreclosed on- generally bad news.
M-TV had an astonishing video on. Absolutely blew me away. An odd darkhaired bearded man singing in an operatic fashion with children in a game parlor fighting war. The video had the children acting out the war in Iraq and the images were chilling. Playing war including a carbomb nad children left dead on the street. The song was "Empty Walls" from a new release called "Elect the Dead" by Serg Tankian.
Serg Tankian is a 40 year old artist born in Beirut from Armenian parents who was educated in the USA in California. He was part of an influential alternative group, "System of a Down" whose founders were all Armenian Americans. The music is very different than anything I usually listen to but is is also very political. If the revolution has a soundtrack, this may be what it sounds like. One of their songs, Chop Suey, was on the top of various lists before 9/11 and was placed on various "do not play" lists. Here is the You Tube link.. Apparently the video referred to Kurt Cobain's suicide and drug addiction as well as the destruction of Armenia. The music is very heavy metal tinged and political- so-called "art-metal.".
Serg separated from SOAD to work on this solo project. He has released a video for each of the 12 tracks on the album. This track is also strongly questioning the war in Iraq. He also co-founded (with Tom Morello of Audioslave) the "Axis Of Justice" whose mission is to:
...bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice. We aim to build a bridge between fans of music around the world and local political organizations to effectively organize around issues of peace, human rights, and economic justice.
This video "Saving Us" looks at people's tendency to judge others and real charity and generosity, which is innocent.
This music is extremely uncomfortable to listen to and watch. But it is very powerful and seeing it on M-TV really shocked me, but in a good way. There is real change going on such that even the light bouncy fluffy love songs are being displaced by serious music questioning our political system.
I was encouraged, and hopefully this music is part of the peaceful change in attitudes needed to elect a president and congress who are ready to hold the people who led us into this insane war accountable for their actions.
