Rage Against the Machine, Flobots (and a little blurb about Popwreck)

Rage Against the Machine is playing free at the Denver Coliseum during the Democratic National Convention at the Tent State Music Festival to End the War. Read this for details on how they're giving out tickets. Also playing: Flobots (of Denver), The Coup, State Radio and Wayne Kramer (you know, from MC5). Kramer, now 60, played with MC5 at the convention in Chicago in 1968, which was marred by clashes with police. He says he and Tom from Rage have worked on activism together before, so it made sense 40 years after playing at the convention in Chicago to protest Vietnam to play during the DNC again to protest a different war. "We're doing what we can. Everyone can do something in their own community, in their own job. This is something I can do. It's my responsibility," he said.

So does he have any expectations for Denver? "I try to avoid expectations. Who knows what to expect. There's no way to predict. In Chicago, I had an expectation. It turned out kinda the way I thought, that the Chicago police department would make a rampage, and a lot of people would get hurt. Will Denver police do the same thing? I don't know. Have we learned anything from history. I don't know. I thought we'd learn from the Vietnam War not to repeat the same mistake. But we haven't." He says he's going into the Denver festival with a hope of non violence.

Kramer says he's planning to vote for Obama. "I have never in my life believed in a
president or presidential candidate, although I do admire Jimmy Carter a great deal, but Barack Obama to me represents a politician of a magnitude above and beyond anything we've seen in my lifetime."

Flobots, meanwhile, have a nonprofit doing nonpartisan voter registration work. They're playing at private events for the DNC, including a media welcome party Saturday before the convention and then a National Association of Recording Artists event. But they've been talking with Tent State organizers for a while about doing the public festival too. "We have a message we want to put out and want everybody to hear it," Jonny 5 said. "There's a larger shift in consciousness of, especially younger people in this country, that is very honest about this country's mistakes and the fact that U.S. policy has involved violence and antidemocratic decisions. At the same time we're not going to surrender to that."


Popwreck plays at the Larimer Lounge tomorrow night, 8/15. E-mail us soon if you want $3 tickets.