Comment on this story What: Right To Vote When: Bigger Than Dallas, Mr. Self-Reliant, Apolloswitch, Obadiah, Atropos, The Royal Bangs, The Bloodiest Night of My Life, Pawn To King, Cadre, Henry Gibson, DJ Mister Power, DJ Jix/Circa Where: Friday, Sept. 3, 7 p.m. Cost: Free

Local musicians rock to get out the vote

by Joe Tarr

The first election Joey Mullenix was old enough to vote in was the 1992 contest between Bill Clinton and the first George Bush. Mullenix remembers there being an urgency to get involved, one that he hadn’t seen much of until very recently.

“A lot of kids were motivated to vote. There was a big push to get kids out and vote and I think that’s really been lost,” says Mullenix, a solo acoustic musician who performs as Cadre. “A lot of kids now say they don’t even care or there’s this weird rightwing movement that’s gotten into the underground music scene. You get a lot [of people] saying ‘Both of them are crooks’ or ‘It’s not going to effect me.’ A lot of them say, ‘Forget about it, I’m not going to vote for either one of them.’”

“So many people have been lied to, so they’re apathetic,” he adds.

With November’s polarizing presidential election quickly approaching, there’s a compelling drive to register voters and get people involved, perhaps as strong as it has been in years. Many musicians are leading the call to cast a ballot. There have been several events geared toward registering voters, particularly young ones, many of them who have never voted.

Locally, there’s been a flurry of events geared toward getting out the vote, although much of it has been non-partisan. Last week Christopher Scum organized the “Freedom of Speech and Voter Registration Rally” at the Electric Ballroom, featuring six bands and several political speakers. Tomorrow night, KnowShows.com will hold a “Right to Vote” event at Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria, featuring bands and DJs.

Tomorrow’s show originally came about as a way of getting the bands and fans active in the KnoxShows.com online music forum together. Renée Sanabria, it’s moderator, decided to use it to get more people to the polls.

“I figure a lot of young people will come out [to the show],” she says. “For a long time after I turned 18, I didn’t know how to register to vote.”

“This isn’t going to be just for this election. We want this to be an annual event, to just stress how important it is to take part in national elections, locally as well. It’s where you live and you should have some say over who is making decisions in your community,” she adds.

There’s no partisan bent, but she expects more liberals to be there than conservatives. Sanabria invited as many young political groups as she could think of. “The only bias that might happen at this event is who is interested in coming out and representing themselves. I’ve heard back from the College Democrats, but I haven’t heard back from the College Libertarians or the College Republicans,” she says. “The actual event is going to be just in the interest of getting people to vote.”

Music and politics have often intermingled to varying degrees. In the 20th century it’s been pretty common. Back in 1928, Uncle Dave Macon championed New York Gov. Al Smith for president with “Governor Al Smith.” Woody Guthrie is probably the standard-bearer for all musicians who advocate for political change, and he influenced a generation of folk musicians in the ’50s and ’60s. The folkies politicos quickly spread to rock ’n’ roll as the Vietnam War raged on.

Since then politics has come in waves in pop music, and oftentimes it’s viewed with suspicion and disdain as pretentious and self-righteous (for instance, U2 in the late ’80s).

But the 2004 election has been too emotionally charged and President Bush too divisive for musicians to avoid. Some have thrust themselves right into the heart of it. Bruce Springsteen is spearheading the Vote for Change—a tour designed to drum up opposition to Bush—with R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam and several other groups joining him. Steve Earle recently released The Revolution Starts�Now, an album intended to fire up the left. Of course, the right also has their anthems—Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” Toby Keith’s “Angry American (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue)” and Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You.” The recent election has even spawned a battle over the late icon, Johnny Cash, with each trying to claim him.

The local events are avoiding overt politics. “I want people to register to vote,” says Henry Gibson, who will play at the Right to Vote event. “Don’t do it because everybody else is doing it, do it because you really want to do it.”

Gibson is 25 and he recently just registered to vote himself. Prior to that he followed a religion that discouraged involvement in politics. “The whole idea was to not take a side because the side you wanted to be on was God’s side. Which wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me,” he says.

He started to pay more attention to politics when the United States went to war with Iraq. “I didn’t want to be one of those uninformed Americans or one of those people who doesn’t question,” Gibson says.

Gibson’s earlier reluctance to get involved in politics is pretty common. Amy Broyles, who works with Get Out The Vote of East Tennessee, says the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds voting has declined every year since the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972. About 48 percent of Tennesseans in that age group voted in 1972; four years ago only 28 percent voted. “I think that number will go up this year,” Broyles says.

In the past several months, Broyles has registered more than 3,000 voters in the area. She hopes to hit 5,000 by Oct. 2, the deadline to register for the November election. Her group has gotten a lot of new voters at local concerts like Sundown in the City. They registered 10 people at Scum’s Freedom of Speech rally; 60 at the Jam for Cans concert in Market Square. About half of the people they’ve registered are in the 18- to 24-year-old group, Broyles says.

“It just seems that everyone is passionate this year no matter what side they’re on and they want their voice to be heard,” she says.

“A lot of [the young people] seem to be really excited to be old enough to vote. Which is great, because they should be. We have a lot of people coming up who are young and are saying ‘I don’t want to be drafted.’ A lot of them are in college and are concerned about whether they’ll have a job when they get out or whether they’ll be able to afford to stay in college. There’s a lot who are concerned about the war in Iraq,” Broyles says.

The Knoxville League of Pissed Off Voters—a progressive group that is putting out of a voter guide and specifically targeting young people—has been present at several local concerts and events. The group’s Caroline DeVan says the upsurge in interest among youth is indicative of the whole population. “It seems to me that more people in general are excited about the election and that includes young people,” she says. “These concerts are representative of people applying their skills to get involved in something they’re concerned about.”

Gibson doesn’t plan on preaching at the concert. He doesn’t write political songs.

“I pretty much write singer-songwriter stuff, mainly about relationships and introspective stuff,” he says. “I’m not sure I’m capable of writing something that good.”

Mullenix, who will also be playing at Right To Vote, does tackle politics, but from an off-beat perspective. “I say that I sing left-wing love songs. There’ll be songs about a girl and then allusions to worker rights mixed in with the girl left me,” says Mullenix.

The themes come from his family upbringing—his mother’s family picked cotton; his dad’s were union members who worked in an auto plant—and his music idols, Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie, among others.

He doesn’t believe his music, or anybody’s, has much direct influence at the polls. “I think it motivates people who are already motivated to go out there and be more vocal. You’re not going to get people who are going to vote for Bush going to those shows and then snapping and saying, ‘God, I was all wrong.’”

Most performers say they’re going to avoid political proselytizing. Ryan Schaefer of The Royal Bangs (which used to go by the Suburban Urchins) says, “we’re not at all a political band. And really our stance on it is we’re not here to tell you who to vote for, we’re only here to tell you to vote�. I don’t even know if I’ll say that. It’s preaching to the converted.”

Matt White, drummer for Mr. Self-Reliant, which will also be playing, says his band doesn’t dabble much in politics. The band does have a political song called “Devil in the Everyday,” about “George Bush, how he wasn’t the people’s choice but was still elected.” They’ll probably play it, but don’t won’t try to fire up any anti-Bush sentiment. “We try to remain neutral most of the time. It can be annoying to be preached to and you just want to hear some music.”

Mullenix says his message to the crowd is simple: “Get off your butt.”

“I always say I’m one guy with a guitar and I can’t even play guitar or sing very well. It doesn’t set the bar very high for them to go out and do something,” he says. “It’s not about the immediate results you get from it, but for our sakes and our kids’ sakes, you’ve got to be involved.”

September 2, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 36 © 2004 Metro Pulse