8. Solidarity Songs

8.           Solidarity Songs   (Updated 7-18-15)

Blue Rose really gave Johnny Livewire the blues, It wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping it together. It was better off dead. He put dead roses on its grave but the hangover remained. His last chance at stardom was gone. He felt like hiding away, joining a cult. He became a Wobbly.

 “Politician,” the Cream version, had always been on Johnny Livewire’s band’s set lists. But he never played with political rock musicians. Instead, he incorporated blues-rock with natural proletarian struggles, after all the blues came from being without something and having no money to get it. Johnny had grown up in a time when folk rock was emerging from folk music; Peter, Paul & Mary sarcastically sang “I did Rock ‘n’ Roll music” and Dylan was booed off stage at Newport. Leadbelly’s “House of the Rising Sun” through The Animals entered the mainstream. Many of Johnny Livewire’s favorite bands and singers were working class advocates. Phil Ochs entered Johnny’s consciousness just as the THC entered his bloodstream. When Johnny read in the Village Voice that Phil was giving a show at Gerde’s Folk City on Oct, 19, 1975, he just had to go. It might be his last. He grabbed Ferine and went.

Phil Ochs had been through a lot by 1975. Johnny knew he was considered a has-been even by himself. When they got to Folk City at seven, a few dozen people were milling around in the long narrow space. In front was a long wet bar. Sitting midway was Phil in his plaid flat cloth cap and wire-rimmed glasses, with his head slumped low almost on the counter nursing a whiskey on rocks. “I think he wants to be alone,” Ferine remarked. They went in back to take seats.

When Sammy Walker walked out to the spotlight, Johnny thought he was John Train; that’s what those nearby were saying. He didn’t know they were referring to Phil in his new persona. Phil walked back, glass in hand, said he was John Train. “Hello everyone, I’m Johnny Cash, before amphetamines,” said Phil and went into four songs with Sammy before doing four more alone. It was quite a disappointment for Johnny and Ferine. 

Years later, after Johnny returned to the states from Tahiti, Phil’s memory was revived when Johnny joined the Industrial Workers of the World and sang Phil’s “Joe Hill” at a fundraiser.

The I.W.W. outreach action outside the Rage against the Machine concert at Roseland in New York City on Saturday October 2^nd was wonderful. Everything was ready for the action. Johnny had the shirts they thought they would sell to the line of mostly white teenagers and young men. He had cut and pasted a handsome recruitment leaflet to be handed out. Other Wobblies, Richard and Damian, were there on time. The three got to work reaching out.

The line wound down 52^nd Street and around Broadway as Johnny Livewire had expected; the ‘standing room only’ crowd would want to be first to the stage. The three of them had fifty leaflets and five t-shirts each which they hoped to sell to raise funds. No one was buying. Some flippant teens even asked for free t-shirts but the leaflets went like hotcakes. They stopped often to answer questions from the curious about the I.W.W. Johnny played up how Tom Morello, the guitarist in Rage, has worn the Wobbly union globe cap but no one believed him. Johnny wondered if they would believe him if he had a copy of a photo of Tom wearing one. Even them it was doubtful if concert-goers would have opened their wallets. He ended up giving a shirt away to someone who promised to put it on.

The three of them were working different parts of the line. Johnny was alone under the marquee talking up the I.W.W. when a cop pulled up behind him in a patrol car.

“Hey, you!” he asked. “Are you selling those shirts?”

“No,” Johnny answered truthfully.

“Are those not shirts you have there?” He spotted some in Johnny’s tote bag.

“Yes, but I’m not selling them,” Johnny insisted. “I merely gave one away!”

“You need a peddler’s license,” he mentioned. “”Now get lost or hand out all the shirts.” With no other Wobblies in sight to back him up, Johnny slinked away.

The three Wobblies met up again near the stage door on 53^rd Street. Realizing they wouldn’t be raising any funds, they shifted gears. One fan told them that Tom Morello had just stepped out and would be coming back. They thanked him for the information with a t-shirt and waited. Damian handed a leaflet to a stage hand who said he would pass it along to the band. Meanwhile, Chuck D. from Public Enemy came on the scene. Damian gave him their new Sabo Cat t-shirt and Chuck D. gave them the thumbs up. Later they gave one of his roadies a leaflet.

When Tom Morello finally showed up, they ushered him through the back door. All the while the Wobblies kept calling for acknowledgement. Damian threw a t-shirt which hit Tom Morello in the neck through the closing door. To their delight, he stepped back out a moment later looked over at them and said “Hey! Thanks!” They imagined Tom Morello and Chuck D. wearing I.W.W. t-shirts on stage and contemplated returning after the concert to try raising funds again, but they had done a lot already and headed back to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to celebrate their victory.

What had they accomplished having this action? What could they learn from it to improve further outreach? They learned that concert lines at “socially-conscious” performers’ shows were good opportunities to reach out and share I.W.W. ideals. They had handed out over two hundred leaflets and could have handed out even more if they had had more. Selling t-shirts to raise funds didn’t pan out though it was a sign of good will to hand a few out to interested folk and certainly, it was a bonus if they could get a shirt and leaflet to the performers. Wobblies had to buddy-up and look out for cops and other reactionaries. Pe4rhaps they could try meeting after a performance as well as beforehand. Their leaflets themselves could be improved; they should make it clear that they were the NYC General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World and not the Long Island GMB though it was thoughtful of them to put them on the leaflet for the sake of the Long Island concert-goers present. It remained to be seen how many people would contact Richard or Johnny’s e-mail address or go to their next meeting as a result of that outreach, two important factors in judging the success of an outreach. It was a step in the right direction. They now had a t-shirt and leaflet for future direct actions and agreed it would be worthwhile doing it again.