Paul Stein uses his accordion, melodica, claviola, voice, & original songs to support peace, justice, & the environment. Co-founder of The Occuponics, who were active throughout Occupy Wall Street, he can be heard at marches, demonstrations, rallies, & vigils all around the New York City area, often with the Filthy Rotten System band.
This past Earth Day, West Coast musicians including Occupella, Hali Hammer, Country Joe McDonald, the Freedom Song Network, and many others joined to sing Woody Guthrie’s classic “This Land is Your Land.” This song is also featured prominently in the repertoire of The Occuponics and The Guitarmy.
Hali Hammer is also working on editing a video that will capture the nationwide performance of this song on that day. The Occuponics took part in that outdoor event and successfully played even while being buffeted by a Major Northeaster, and we’ll post video of this performance (the Occupy/Ocupemos Sunset Park Sing Out for Earth Day) soon.
Braced by its success on May Day, Occupy Guitarmy made its way to Federal Hall this past Saturday to jam on the steps of the building where the Bill of Rights is housed, guarded by General George Washington. One-half of these steps has been designated by federal authorities as a “First Amendment Area,” and this small space, ringed by barricades, has been dubbed “the Freedom Cage” by demonstrators.
Here, the GUITARMY jams on a chant-oriented song loosely based on the Pointer Sisters’ 1972 hit, “I’ll Take You There.” The Guitarmy version simplifies the song to a C-F chord progression, accompanied by whatever lyrics are on protesters’ minds at the moment.
NOTE: THIS IS A FIELD VIDEO RECORDING AND WAS UPLOADED WITHOUT EDITING. The music begins about 25 minutes in.
The really cool part is when that gang of high-schoolers comes through and cheers. That truly made everyone’s day.
Occupella formed in late 2011 to add musical support to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the greater Bay Area. The Occuponics salute them and include this video showing the band in action. We fully agree with co-founder Bonnie Lockhart’s comment that the purpose of a musical group in a social movement context “isn’t going to be performing, it’s going to be about getting people to sing.”
The Tax Dodgers – a satirical baseball team that The Occuponics often accompany when they stroll and sing the “Tax Dodger Song,” were on the radio recently with Danny Schecter, the News Dissector. Here they are on the radio: this show was broadcast on PRN (the Progressive Radio Network) on April 27, 2012.
The Occuponics’ Stephen C. Baldwin had the pleasure of being with the GUITARMY today on veteran progressive media critic Danny Schecter’s weekly radio show on PRN (the Progressive Radio Network).
Long before Occupy Wall Street appeared, Danny was pointing out how the corporatization of media was endangering democracy in the U.S.A. You can listen to the show below. Also included is a video shot by Robert K. Chin on the big GUITARMY March on May First, 2012.
The Occuponics perform “Wall Street Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” a song based on an old gospel song that was taught to the group by Painless Parker, AKA Noam Berg, back in November of 2011.
This song is regularly performed by The Occuponics because it is so aligned with the charter of the band to be “inclusive and participatory.” The song allows people listening to it to sing along with each verse and also to interactively contribute lines to it. It’s also easy to teach to other instrumentalists, because if follows a very simple Dm to A7 to Gm chord progression.
This recording of the song, captured by videographer CocoAndBrownie, includes lyrics calling out Monsanto, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, as well as unspecified “plutocrats.” The guitarist vocalist is Stephen Carl Baldwin, accompanied by Carlos Mandelbaum on tenor saxophone.
This video from CocoAndBrownie captures the Occuponics, at Zuccotti Park/AKA LIberty Square, back in March 2012 (a time the mainstream media continues to insist Occupy Wall Street had completely disappeared). As you can see, there were demonstrators there that cold March day.
As I’ve written elsewhere, Occupy never “faded away” at all: it was the media that “faded away” and I’m sure they’re already fading away again, now that May Day is behind us and Snooki’s PR agent is calling them complaining that they’re not paying enough attention to her travails.
“NYPD, Why Don’t You Party With Me” was written by Stephen Carl Baldwin in late 2011 during one of the Occuponics’ freeform jams in Zuccotti Park. The chord progression in this song (G-Em-C-D) is identical to Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” and “If I Had a Hammer,” as well as about a thousand Doo-Wop songs of the late 1950s. The song is intended to serve as a genuinely friendly ode to New York’s Finest, many of whom the songwriter believes sympathize with OWS while being forbidden by departmental protocol to share this opinion. In fact, on at least one occasion this song was greeted with shout-outs from a couple of police officers to “play it again!” At the same time, this song criticizes Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his heavy-handed treatment of Occupy Wall Street, characterizing the Mayor as having “a heart of stone.”
Lyrics to “NYPD, Why Don’t You Party With Me”
Hey Mayor Bloomberg
You saw us camping alone
And so you ruined our home
You’ve got a heart of stone
Hey Mayor Bloomberg
I used to think you were nice
You ain’t fooling us twice
You’ve got a heart of ice
So NYPD
Why don’t you party with me
We all know you’re the best
You’re New York’s finest
Yes, NYPD
Why don’t you party with me
We all know you’re the best
You’re New York’s finest
(repeat entire song once and face out with chorus (NYPD, why don’t you party with me…)
The Occuponics had the honor of marching with Pete when he marched from 92nd Street to Columbus Circle back in October 2011 to express his support of Occupy Wall Street. We learned a lot about what it takes to keep the music happening on a long march, actively appliy these lessons to our work with Guitarmy, a project loosely affiliated with the OWS Music Group.
Thanks to the wonderful friend and folksinger Steve Suffet for turning us onto this great video taken of Pete Seeger in Melburne, Australia, back in 1963. As Steve points out, this video captures Pete doing what he does best: getting a lot of people to sing great solidarity-building songs together.
