A G I T D I S C O

Agit Disco is close to desert island discs, or dissident island, to use the name of a podcast I listen to. I think of the fickleness of musical taste, even when it comes to political music. It seems that most of us, in similar generations, class and region, pick the same stuff, have been touched by the same songs—generic yet particular and poignant selections.  And so it feels silly for the choices to be taken as exemplary, especially considering that even though music has had a strong effect on me, but I wouldn’t call myself musical, let alone a DJ or a musician. Music picks are largely life style choices, and life style politics is really only the beginning.

That said! The list is in part songs that were key to points in my life, in part songs I like now, in part also a kind of mapping of my musical interests, and also picking songs that might work together. Some music that was important during ‘youth’ is no longer, and functions more as a cue for that time. “Search and Destroy” and the Dead Kennedy’s tune are like that, and utterly predictable in a list like this but nevertheless necessary. “Is that all there is” is a lovely song—seeing through the tumult is real freedom, while playing
the wager of keeping your hand in it, because after all disillusionment itself is a little overwrought. The Soft Pink Truth cover of the Crass song I think is funny—it spans my first brush with political music up to where I am more or less at today. I think it is a good cover in that a cover is supposed to get the essence of the original but also give it a whole new dimension. I grew up in a pretty farming area in Nova Scotia, and this music made total sense to me even though it was from another place I couldn’t really imagine. Agit Disco opens up a whole series of questions around the political and the depolitical in nostalgia and autobiography…I could go on at length!