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the Other Press

July 8, 1991

 

 

Consolidated: Exploding the Myth of Rock

an interview with music’s answer to the Squamish 5

by Tim Crumley

onsolidated

h a s

established a
hardcore following in pockets of North
America and Europe, and that has only
been strengthened following theirsecond
effort, Friendly Fascism.

Don’t let that fool you -
Consolidated is not a rock and roll band.
Consolidated claims to be a collective
working for radical social change in all
of the state's institutions, In short,
complete and total equality for women,
people of colour, lesbians and gays, the
disabled, and anyone oppressed by the
fascist regime that exists in every
country in the world,

After their first release, The Myth
of Rock, Consolidated went on an
extensive tour of the US, Canada, and
Europe. What they found was a mixed
bag of misunderstanding, support, and
outright contempt for the ideas they
were espousing. They talk on the second
album of wondering if they will ever be
able to record again, while the rest of the
music industry "grinds out the cheeze
whiz" as usual.

The band’s unflinching, blatantly
political attitude has got the trio from
San Francisco into the forefront of the
debate on "politically correct" attitudes
and language, reflected in actual
discussions sampled and put on the
record with the band. They have an
interesting solution to the old problem
of losing touch with their public - they
invite them to debate the issues in a
forum held after their show.

The Other Press caught up with
Adam of Consolidated while they were
on tour with Meat Beat Manifesto,
another band who cut the leading edge
of industrial/dance. The ensuing
conversation tries to capture
Consolidated in its ongoing process of
reevaluating and redefining its roleas an
educational and political force in a
contradictory and fascist music
industry.

Other Press: On your first
record you were saying that all
music was regressive, even
serious music, which
Consolidated could be classed
as. Why was the second album
attempted, and what was the
purpose in doing it?

Adam: That's a good point.
The point we try to make is we
also feel the realms of political,
the realms of educational, the
realms of judicial and
correctional, the realms of
business and military, or
whatever areas you're trying to
impact, as well as music as a part
of all culture and commodity
society, is regressive.

But we feel that all of these
other institutions are regressive
too. And that’s why we don’t
make a conscious attempt at
another realm, like politics or
something like that. We feel that
our chances of having any
impact are every bit as great in

regressive music as they are
anywhere else.

It wouldn’t make sense for
us to stop because it’s regressive
because it’s not like we’re going
to go ahead and take up
something _ else that’s
completely devoid of any social
contradiction.

OP: You also said on your
second album, Friendly
Fascism, that the first record had
failed in achieving its desired
goals. I was wondering if you
could get more in depth on
what happened after the release
of the first album.

Adam: Well, in many ways,
we knew that even before we
released the album it would fail.
And the idea was to go out and
chart that failure that was a
result of touring and meeting
people and stuff.

The obvious failure is that
you put out a record based on
the assumption that you’re in
favour of social equality, of
racial equality, gender equality,
and the reduction of these
institutional forms of
oppression, and you go out on
tour all over North America and
Europe, and you find that your
all your music has been reduced
to is like an insight to male frat
violence for industrial hip hop
crowds. And we were really
frustrated by that.

OP: Yeah, because I was
listening to Discussion on the
record and it sounded pretty
scary. Is that indicative of most
of the shows that you did
interviews at?

Adam: Yes, it’s totally
indicative of that element being
represented every night, and the
tendencies for those people’s
kinds of comments are prevalent
at every city that we’ve been to.
But also the ability for people to
make very astute, informed
comments are also prevalent in
every city, as are the tendencies
for people to be totally
indifferent, apathetic, and not
give a shit about what we have
to do or what we've got to say.

OP: I noticed on the tour
posters that you’re coming here
with Meat Beat Manifesto at the
end of the month, and your tour
is sponsored by Coke. How do
you deal with trying to make a
message to the people about
smashing the system when the
only way you can tour is to buy
into the entire commercial
scheme?

Adam: I saw one other place
where there was a huge
Coca-Cola sticker over our
poster, that’s the only other
example of it that I’ve heard. I’m
wondering where it came from.
Obviously this is not our tour,
it’s Meat Beat’s tour, and if we
had known that they were going
to try to play that shit we would
definitely have made
stipulations to disclaim
responsibility from that.

On a more subtle level, this
crops up all the time. You know,
we find ourselves playing all the
time in bars that have this huge
Miller beer endorsement of the
nightclub where we’re playing.
And people want to call us

hypocrites for being implicit in
that, but it’s like our society is
based on that kind of corporate
domination. And unfortunately
like you said, to get to these cities
sometimes we end up being
subsumed under it. And it’s a
real drag to find that out We’ve

been totally co-opted and had

kan

Consolidated: working to fight the systeMthrough danceable political musi

our credibility destroyed by it.

OP: Also just recently
there’s been a real big emphasis
placed on ‘politically correct’ in
the media, with Newsweek,
Time, and even local papers and
media doing stories on it. Where
does Consolidated fit into this
whole ‘politically correct
argument? Because I’ve been
assuming that you’ve been just
raked over the coals for it.

Adam: Yeah we have been,
and we’re happy to be. There’s
not really an argument that we
have for that, except that
politically correct in our society
is much more closely linked to
what George Bush or the Klan or
Guns ’n Roses in the cultural
realm have to represent. To us
they seem way more politically
correct in that they uphold all
the institutions of our political
economy.

There’s
always people
who lambaste
us for being
too politically
correct. For us,
all those kind
of terms are a
huge joke, I
mean, all we’re asking people to
do is act intelligently or
accountably.

OP: I'd like to hear what you
think of the new album so far,
how it’s working out tour-wise,
how it’s different from last
albums touring.

Adam: I think it has
functioned to weed out some of
the more nihilistic male frat
violence at our shows. We do
have to make our disclaimer at

   

the beginning of the show, so the
emphasis is on non- violence,
but everyone's been really cool
by and large. It’s been really
good for us, because we’re
playing to much larger crowds,
Meat Beat’s got a lot of
recognition

and popularity and
that’s really pod tae us. And as

es

  

ic
far as working on the audience,
I think we hit a few nerves, in
terms of critiquing male society,
critiquing the music biz, to try
and get into our oversimplified
format the unity of oppression,

*which we think is very
important, and to give the
impression to the audience that
we do indeed live under facism,
contrary to what anyone else
might say.

OP: Consolidated is an
all-white band, right?

Adam: Yes.

OP: And all-male, and I’m
assuming all-straight too, but
that may not be correct. I’m
wondering where the hell did
you guys learn all this? Because
it seems that in our society men,
straight white men, really have
no care or ability to learn some
kind of accountability or
responsibility in our society.

Adam: Yeah well, are you a
white heterosexual male
yourself?

OP: Yeah.

Adam: We tend to even
limit it to white males. As white
heterosexual males... you know
it’s just everything you’ve
learned forms an immediate
contradiction in your mind as
soon as you deal with other
people. And if you can’t be
sensitive to the fact that you’ve

been trained to uphold your
own selfish needs at the expense
or without the consideration of
anybody else, then you just

don’t see that you've had a very
effective example of
programming in your life.

We're no different than
plenty of other straight white
men or white American men
who feel really ridiculous about
the level of their hegemony as
gender, as race.

OP: Are people expecting
you, as a progressive band, to
know more, or make no
mistakes?

Adam: Definitely. And
we're happy to be held up to
unrealistic expectations of a pop
band, so we can show people
what the ‘cult of personality has
done to them in terms of
perceiving culture. So it’s fine
for us to be called hypocrites,
because we claim to be any
capitalist. We can also be held
up to be perfect white American
males even though we’re
always finding new examples of
our own failure to uphold the
causes ‘we’ totally support.’ It’s
fine to be dissed by your public
because you need to be, and it’s
also fine for us to serve that
function to make the public feel
that they can be empowered a
little bit. g

OP: Do you find it a

fe - problem té-“Rold@ “yourself”

politically accountable to the
people in your life and people
who come to your shows when
you're on the road?
Adam: Well, in many ways
we don’t. When we go out on the
road we become an itinerant
commodity image. So in that
respect, we fail to be politically
accountable. But what I will say
is on two maybe very marginal
levels, we do have people who
are representing our agenda
setting up tables, distributing
information, and taking part in
the shows when we're on tour...
the work for choice groups in
San Francisco, the animal rights
groups, the inner city youth
organizations.... we'll have
people who represent those
interests show up and try to take
over some kind of potential for
political involvement where we
are simply just acting as
entertainers/activists/mediato
rs.
OP: I guess it’s pretty well
impossible to bring your family

Politically correct is more
indicative of George Bush or the
Klan or Guns ’n Roses

with you when you're touring.
You guys don’t make that much
money.

Adam: Yeah, we don’t make
shit, and even.... you know, if we
made more money, I'd try it, but
it’s like, I’ve been on tour. I
wouldn’t want to take my wife
and kid on it.

OP: Are you guys gonna
make another album or what?

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