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It's election time, which also means it's political protest season. Here are five sterling examples of how Portland musicians have fought the power.
1. Sleater-Kinney, "Combat Rock"
Swiping an album title from the Clash and employing a militant reggae march, Portland's fiercest trio were among the first bands to call bullshit on the blind patriotism of the post-9/11 Bush years, asking bluntly, "Since when is skepticism un-American?"
2. Derroll Adams, "Portland Town"
Written in 1957, Adams' haunting folk standard presents the horror of war as simple math: He's got three children; each gets sent off to fight; now he has none. It's more effective than any march or rally could ever be.
3. The Thermals, "An Ear for Baby"
Really, the whole of 2006's The Blood, the Body, the Machine counts as one of the great statements of protest to come out of Portland, raging tunefully against an America that, at the time, was beginning to resemble a Christian theocracy. Sadly, it hasn't aged a day. "Dig the ditches deep! We're gonna need a new border!" shouts Hutch Harris in the guise of an imperialistic leader. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
4. The Gossip, "Standing in the Way of Control"
Beth Ditto and company's biggest single is such a dance-floor wrecking ball it's easy to miss the song was a reaction to the government's attempt to outlaw same-sex marriage. "I wrote the chorus to try and encourage people not to give up," Ditto once said. Given the progress that's since been made on that particular front, it seems to have worked.
5. Vinnie Dewayne, "Page 37"
Dewayne opens one of his most poignant tracks by describing a shooting in North Portland, but the St. Johns MC knows violence doesn't happen in a vacuum—particularly in a system that's gamed against a young black man like him. "Give me a clean slate, too late, I understand," he raps, "these cuffs on my hands, from the jump was a plan."
Willamette Week