The Crematorium and Other Stories

Crikey, no-one’s posted on here in months!

In fact, the last post was a Tolpuddle preview.

I think it’s fair to say, looking back on it now that we had an amazing Tolpuddle performing as Maddy Carty & The Protest Family and as Workers Playtime, plus the almost-part-of-the-Tolpuddle furniture Unplugged session, and obligatory selfies with Jeremy Corbyn. I was going to write something about Tolpuddle Unplugged. In fact I still might, but suffice to say that every year I worry that it’s going to be a disaster, and every year it’s the opposite. I might have even figured out how it works, or at least I think so. The premise is ridiculous: Run a stage at a small but popular festival with no budget, no acts or amplification. Where do you start? Well, give it to a couple of chancers from an East London folk/punk band who’s main talent appears to be making friends, and chuck them into a field full of like-minded people who’ve stepped out of the struggle for the weekend to enjoy each other’s company while imagining a better, fairer world. It seems to work somehow.

Paul Rutland
Tolpuddle Unplugged: I think I know which side they’re all on.

The band has, though, been quiet since the summer, some of it planned and some unplanned. In a fallow year for Protest Family albums, you may have expected a solo effort from me, along the lines of somethingweirdgoingoninmyhead or Check Your Stereo. Well, the new songs are coming, a bit slower maybe, but there’s some work on it’s way that I’m already quite proud of, even before the rest of the band get their mucky paws on it and work their magic. You might have got some titbits from social media when I’ve got impatient and stuck myself in front of a live camera, or on YouTube where I’ve parked some sketches of songs where they’re easy for Doug, Lol and Russ to find, or if you’ve caught me giving some songs a run-out on my solo travels.

The Crematorium is of course the most immediately pressing message to get out there, but the song’s not going to go away, anymore than the Justice4Grenfell campaign will. We did knock up a terrific version of it for Tolpuddle with Robb Johnson on lead guitar and Maddy Carty’s amazing backing vocals, but the regular Protest Family line-up’s version is yet to be unveiled. Expect to hear it on November 14th at Ye Olde Rose & Crown as we raise money for striking workers at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Although The Death of Facts has been around since I played it at Punk 4 The Homeless in Nottingham last year, it’s not on the band’s radar yet, but I think it will be eventually. What is coming up soon (see above for when soon is) are Protest Family versions of Supersonic (using supersonic passenger flight to demonstrate that progress isn’t linear) and Han Solo (using the films of Harrison Ford to talk about consent. A chat that the actual Harrison Ford could’ve done with, by all accounts).

There’s enough love out there for If The Queen Had a Hammer that I think there will be a band version of it and, although I’m yet to share it with them, I think there’s a future for my song about Frank Turner (cheekily titled Thatcher Fucked The Kids) too. However my Blue Labour anthem Flag, Faith, Family & Fried Chicken may well fall by the wayside. It’s funny, true (look them up) and in the Protest Family style, but I think I’m tiring of it before it’s crossed the finish line. Maybe a new arrangement will give it a new lease of life. We’ll see.

Also queuing up to hit your ears is a Steve White/Russ Chandler collaboration called Winter of Discontent. Featuring Shakespeare’s Richard III re-cast as a trade union leader in the dying months of the Callaghan government, it’s the first time that I’ve put anything out there in iambic pentameter. The song will feature on a winter-themed compilation with a worldwide distribution deal* very soon. I’ll point you in the right direction when it comes out.

So, there’s songs, there’s big ideas, but maybe a lack of a vehicle to get them to you. Yes, gigs are a little thin on the ground but we do have a cunning plan or two, so (WATCH THIS SPACE).

Steve

 

*Everybody with an internet connection and an upload button’s got one.

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Maddy Carty & The Protest Family

We first met Maddy Carty about two years ago.  We were both playing for the Show Culture Some Love campaign.  The Family were struck by her remarkable, strong yet vulnerable voice and sophisticated modern soul-based songs.  We immediately suggested her to play at the Matchwomen’s Festival a few months later.

During a rehearsal (yes, we do rehearse), we were trying Right To Strike (from Drums Ruin Everything).  It didn’t sound quite right.  Someone suggested that it might sound good with a female voice doing harmony, like… Maddy Carty.  We warmed to the idea that she might play keyboards on it too.  A few days later, she agreed.  More than that, she really wanted to perform Have I Got News For You with us.  By the time we met up, she was playing on four songs.  She joined us on stage at the Matchwomen’s Festival in July – and it was fun.  We did it again at the Leytonstone Festival the following week. A couple of months later, Steve and Maddy did a couple of songs together in central London.

Madd y and Steve Paul Rutland mod
Steve and Maddy  (Pic: Paul Rutland)

Meanwhile, a new movement had been brewing.  It was We Shall Overcome: hundreds of gigs across the country on the same weekend, protesting against austerity, and raising money and collecting food for those hardest hit by it.  We wanted to do something special for that – but what?  Well, who else would we call?  So in October, Maddy Protest joined us for our entire set at the Rose & Crown for Walthamstow Folk’s contribution to the weekend.  It was a great night with an enthusiastic crowd, but…

Discussing it afterwards, we felt that something was a bit off.  Was it Doug’s socks?  No, not this time.  It boiled down to this: we had used Maddy as a piano player and a backing vocalist.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  She’s fine as a piano player.  She’s fine as a backing vocalist.  But she’s got so much more.  She was easily the best singer present on stage that night (sorry, Doug), but her terrific voice was always in the background.  Also, she’s a very strong songwriter, but we played none of her songs at all.  She was happy to play that night, but on reflection it seemed to us to be a bit of an insult to her talents.

Fast forward to 2016.  We had a better idea: how about having Maddy join us properly for a one-off gig?  This time, she could back us on some of our songs – and we would back her on some of hers.  But she let us down badly, pointing out that she was getting married on the day that we’d planned for the performance. How selfish can you get?

marriage-facts
Marriage: selfish

Now it’s 2017 (check your phone if you don’t believe me) and we’ve forgiven her for that snub.  It’s finally going to happen.  On Sunday 16th July at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival in Dorset, Maddy Carty & The Protest Family will take to the stage.  It’s going to be different.  Come and join us.

Lol

(Main pic: Thee Faction)
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Sliding Doors

 

 

My name is Doug and I am a Leyton Orient fan .

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a confession or something I am ashamed of. This is something that I shout from the rooftops , like all Orient fans .

Us Orient fans are used to ridicule from fans of richer clubs, some of whom think a crisis is when their team has not made the later stages of the European Championships (whatever they are) . NO, I am an Orient fan and proud. Here is a club that apart from one season in the toppermost of the poppermost league has always struggled against its more successful neighbours.

Steve and my goodself

I saw my first Orient game in 1969 with my Dad. Orient got a pretty uneventful 1-1 draw with Torquay. My Dad and I would go to about one or two games a year until the mid 70’s when I started to come to games on a regular basis with school mates . That is where regular football started for a lot of us, with mates.

To be honest, over the years the socialising has been more fun than the football , but that is not really the point. It’s a bit like waiting for a bus (no not THAT analogy) you have been waiting so long for the bus to come that you cannot leave the bus stop in case the bus finally comes along. (This analogy too has its problems as most stops have those electric thingys that tell you when the next bus comes along , but that is progress. Anyway, I digress). It’s like waiting for a win or a side that we can have confidence in. I used to go to Arsenal as a teenager one week and Orient the next week. A win at Arsenal was expected no matter who they played and the fans left in relief (they probably still do).At Orient a win is greeted with delight as it is not expected, it is hoped for and so the pleasure is more .

Lol giving it some (err) Lol 

I recently said at a LOFT meeting that the people you meet in life is comparable to the film Sliding Doors . Without Orient, mine and other fans lives would have been different .

I had personal issues in 2009 and it was my Orient family that got me through it with support and love. In 2012 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and again it was my Orient friends that I turned to for support, love and encouragement.

Without Orient, I would not have met my wonderful and supportive wife Sarah, because we met at a wedding of an Orient fan.

Leyton Orient truly is more than a football club. It’s a common thread running through all our lives, binding us together.

The Protest Family would not exist without Orient . The original line up of Myself , Lol  Steve and Rory, met through following the Os.

It’s only a quid

There is a story to tell on how this band got together and that will be for another time , but being in The Protest Family has opened more doors (or is it a train carriage, beginning to regret the Sliding Doors analogy now) to new friendships and experiences that I am eternally grateful for.

In 2000 myself and a few other Os fans thought about starting some kind of fans group as we felt that our voices were not being heard in the game but specifically at the Orient. The more we looked into it the more we found that there was an appetite among fans all over the country for the same thing. At this very time, an organisation was being formed called Supporters Direct, under the leadership of the wonderful Brian Lomax, that would be an umbrella for all Trusts .

With their advice and guidance we were one of the very first trusts launched in 2001. Now the Trust movement has moved not just beyond football but beyond the UK. As the song says we were ‘In the right place , at the right time’

I am one of two founder members that have been on the LOFT (Leyton Orient Fans’ Trust) Board since the start and I have been Chair since 2002. It remains something I am very passionate about, as the rest of the Protest Family will tell you, especially on long car journeys .

LOFT formed to give fan’s a voice in the running of OUR football club, be a critical friend to the OUR club and to be there in case of a crisis.

And that is where we find ourselves at this very moment
LOFT have launched a Regeneration Fund , details here savetheorient.com

If you are reading this before Saturday 1st April you can see us with Brighton fan Attila The Stockbroker who offered his help to the Save The Orient campaign as soon as he heard about it and local legend (and Brentford fan) Graham Larkbey. Details here https://www.facebook.com/events/353102875087017
best to keep an eye on our Facebook page for availability

If you are reading this after Saturday 1st April, you missed a great gig

Solidarity brothers and sisters (HAST)

Doug Protest

x

A picture of fellow LOFT member Russ ,in case he feels left out

 

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That Round-Up That They Do Every Year

routenoteCrikey, what a year: Brexit, Trump, Corbyn and the coups, Syria, the destruction of The Jungle, Theresa May. If you’re a political band of any description you’d better be able to say that you know a song about some of that, and yes we do.

Like it’s predecessor, Protest For Dummies was two years in the making but hopefully it sounds like it might all have been written yesterday, opening as it does with a song about the royal family just as the government announced nearly £400 million pounds worth of public money heading towards repairs to Buckingham Palace. No space or resources for refugees, but millions of pounds to spend on all those empty rooms? Yeah, we might’ve mentioned that.

As political commentators talk up our post-truth, fake news existence and the world experiences an alarming rise in right-wing populism, there’s work to do for the likes of the Protest Family. If the facts don’t matter any more how do you challenge popular opinion or widely held beliefs? Well maybe if you can make the facts rhyme, dress them up with a chorus and mandolins and stuff, then maybe, just maybe people will be humming the truth on their way to work before they realise they’re supposed to have a post-fact reaction to the news.

The hard bit as ever is to get your work into the hands and ears of a wider audience and not just the folk who already share your point of view, hence our decision this time round to distribute the album more widely online, including on Amazon and iTunes. I’ve always avoided the big players before, didn’t want the purity of our art tainted by doing business with them and I’d have felt a bit of a hypocrite doing so, but I’ve been convinced (by the others mainly) that it’s part of reaching as many people as we can, and maybe placing songs about tax justice on an arch tax-dodger’s website is exactly the kind of subversive act that we should be engaged in. Mind you, the bonus track is only on the CD or on downloads from the band’s Bandcamp page, so there’s still a little reward for taking your ethics record shopping with you.

Obviously there’s nothing new about challenging the world we live in through song, as I was reminded listening to Tom Robinson sing Power In The Darkness at the Reminiscences of Rock Against Racism  book launch at Conway Hall in December. It was an extraordinarily powerful song then and it remains so now. Roger Huddle and Red Saunders’ book tells an extraordinary tale too, through the stories of some of the people that were there, including Tom of course. Did I mention that he borrowed my guitar?

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And only one cover version all year.

But never mind Tom (unless you want to drop him a line about listening to Protest For Dummies), what did we do in 2016? Well 46% of our gigs last year were outside the M25 and only 15% were in Waltham Forest (and they were less than a month apart). 15% of last year’s shows were in Hertfordshire and another 15% were in Derbyshire. Nearly 8% featured Jeremy Corbyn on the supporting line-up, but none of those were in Waltham Forest, Hertfordshire or Derbyshire. 15% of appearances were at Labour clubs and 23% were at festivals. (How I’ve got this far without a Venn diagram, I don’t know). 23% were in July and 15% in venues beginning with C….oh, enough.

Anyway, we had a nice time and hopefully made the world a better place by a percentage point or at least a bit of one.

2017? Who knows? It looks like there’s some strike benefits on the horizon and that’s no surprise. There is a surprise planned for July, but more of that later, and otherwise? Well as one reviewer put it, we’re alive and kicking, and definitely kicking.

Happy New Year!

Steve

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Rocking against racism

rarstar-clean-rotated-crop-small

In 1976, in the middle of a rise in moronic nationalism and outright racism led by the National Front, Eric Clapton delivered a horrific, racist rant on stage in Birmingham. Walthamstow lad Roger Huddle and three pals wrote to the NME in disgust. They did far more than that, though – with the same letter, they launched Rock Against Racism.

Within a couple of years it had grown from a few pub gigs to huge events across the country. In 1978, there was a crowd of over 80,000 to see The Clash, Steel Pulse, X-Ray Spex, The Ruts, Sham 69, Generation X and the Tom Robinson Band at Victoria Park in Hackney, east London. The crucial point was that vulnerable young people could see their heroes backing anti-racism – this was a serious youth culture response to the boneheads. The National Front shrank and splintered.

Roger Huddle and fellow founder Red Saunders have edited a book about Rock Against Racism to be published on 5th December. It’s not simply their view of what happened, but a mix of memories and ideas from a range of people, famous, little known and maybe even infamous.

Memories of the past?  Yes, but here’s the thing: the same ‘blame the wrong people’ ideas are growing today. They’re in small groups of nationalist knuckle-draggers, of course, but now… well, they’re lurking in UKIP. They’re lurking in speeches by the Conservative Prime Minister. They’re given airtime via a French fascist leader on a prestigious BBC political interview programme. And, as if we could forget, racism was a key part of the election strategy of the incoming President of the USA.

Anyone who’s even vaguely progressive has some tough battles ahead – that’s for certain. But we can all learn something from the successes of the past. That’s why we’re looking forward to this book.

In fact, we’re honoured to have been asked to do a few songs at the launch. It’s at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square in central London on 5th December. It’s free, but you’ll need to book a place if you’re coming. Folk punk against racism? You bet.

Lol

rar-cover

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Half a century

Our Steve turns 50 (fifty) this week.  It’s a difficult age.  It’s a time when you really, really have to accept that you’re never going to play for England (or even Holland), never going to come up with a coherent Theory Of Everything, never going to the Moon.   (Some of us still haven’t got over that last one.)

He wasn’t always a songwriter.  He only started this nonsense in earnest about 10 years ago.  Since then, Steve’s written songs about all sorts: broken hearts, socialism, police violence, tax dodgers, clownish politicians, fast food, racism, Santa, merchant bankers, picket lines, UKIP, revolution, resistance, cancer, refugees, fox hunting, truth, gluten, death, swearing, cycling, a fizzy drinks company, the misappropriation of language, Hank Marvin, anarchy, monarchy, gentrification, Walthamstow, Chingford, Leyton, Orient, Leyton Orient, health & safety legislation,  piracy (arrrrrrhh!!) and even, rarely, about himself.  Yes, we know a song about that.  Sometimes you think that the songs are too simple to work.  But they usually do.

When I first saw Steve perform live, he was solo (or with Chris Da Lipz), handing out buttered chunks of home-made bread at gigs.  Me and Doug joined up with him in 2009 and what soon became The Family has been on an adventure ever since.  We’ve played in the east, west, south and north of the country and in Northern Ireland.  We’ve had Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn as support acts.  We’ve performed with an ex-Sex Pistol.  We’ve had talents as diverse as Louise Distras, Attila The Stockbroker and Maddy Carty playing on stage with us.  Yes, we’ve argued, fallen out, sulked and fallen back in again.  Most of that happened in one row about a count-in.

We’ll start recording our third studio album soon, and once again all of the songs will be written by Steve.  The rest of us chip in musical bits and pieces and even the occasional word, but they’re his songs.

So you’re all invited to come and join us in celebration on Saturday night at What’s Cookin’ in Leytonstone.  Watch the bands.  Raise a glass to our bandmate – our mate – Steve, who in his personal, professional and musical lives strives to make things a bit better for other people.  And most of all, sing his songs along with us.  See you there.steves-birthday-bash-whats-cookin-oct-2016

Lol

 

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Burston At The Seams

14257594_10210676456850135_4626853904714142151_o.jpg
Hardwork

Alright, so Burston’s the scene of the longest running strike in this country’s history. The Burston tale is one of militant teachers, nasty bosses, a pantomime villain power-hungry preacher, the kids showing extraordinary solidarity and mettle, and the trade union cavalry charging over the hill to save the day. You might have bought a brick at Brisbane Road but Tolstoy sponsored one in the Strike School.

 

The sun shone on this year’s rally, the queues for selfies with Corbyn were long*, the ones at the bar appealingly shorter and we had a great time despite me breaking a string AGAIN. It was great fun too to join Attila the Stockbroker at the end as invited** backing singers on Prince Harry’s Knob. I’m not sure he was expecting the harmonies.

The Corbynmania thing’s a bit weird. We’re all behind JC for obvious reasons but it’s odd seeing him whisked in by car and surrounded by pink-jacketed Unite stewards when you’re used to seeing him just turn up on the bus with everybody else.

I did write about him recently, so if you’re thinking about writing a song about how the whole of the mainstream press, all of the BBC’s politics department and most of his own party appear to be against him despite his enormous public popularity, in the style of Kent Walton commentating on tag-team wrestling, to a country and western themed sound track, don’t worry I’ve got you covered. I even used a line from Tag Team Time in a Facebook status update about Jeremy’s late addition to the Strike School Rally’s line-up of speakers.

You’ll get to hear Tag Team Time (plus our tribute to the Punk Waltham Forest tributes) if you manage to get along to our StowFest gig next week.

Failing that, Lol and I are out being pop-up folk-punks at a Corbyn-supporting show at Nambucca on Wednesday, I’m in Nottingham on October 7th and then it’s all systems go for my birthday bash on October 15th.

So, see you out there somewhere.

Steve

* We didn’t get one, we’ll have to settle for my picture with John McDonnell from the Redbridge Momentum meeting.

** We’ve done it uninvited loads of times.

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Funky Lol’s Picket Line

Most of our songs are pretty easy to understand, but people sometimes ask about Funky Lol’s Picket Line (from This Band Is Sick). It was written by Steve, but it’s got my name in it. Here’s what it’s all about.

It’s a true story from 5 years ago. I was working at a Further Education college in London. We were on a national strike over extra pension contributions. It meant an effective pay cut of £500-£1000 per year for each of us – worth fighting against.

The college was open from 7am-11pm. We had an uneventful picket line in the morning, when most staff and students would have been going in (few did). The strike continued, but the picket line rota wound down early to allow many of the strikers to attend a union event in central London.

I discovered to my surprise that the local Labour Party were planning to hold a fund-raising dinner in the college’s training restaurant that night, with Shadow Minister Caroline Flint as guest speaker. I passed a message to a prominent local Party member, assuming that they would want to postpone the event to support us. His reaction was non-committal. So I went to Labour’s constituency office and rang the bell. I had to speak to an intercom: “Will Caroline Flint cross our picket line tonight?” They invited me in and took my details, but did nothing. Later, I was phoned by the local MP’s agent. He had a superior tone and seemed mildly irritated.

Eventually, I began to realise that I’d have no choice but to reassemble the picket line. I made a couple of phone calls, sent texts and started walking up the road to the college. As I was walking, I got a call from the MP, Stella Creasy. She bent my ear for fully 19 (nineteen) minutes. Whenever I tried to speak, she interrupted with, “No, listen…”

She told me that she had known about the strike a week in advance. She had checked with the Principal of the college (“spoke to the wrong fella”), who doubted that we would continue it into the evening (“said it would be over by tea time”). He was wrong, of course (“you know a strike’s all day when you’re losing a day’s pay”). She hadn’t bothered to check with us. Either we were unimportant to her, or she didn’t want to hear the answer we would have given.

Anyway, she made me an offer: if we let the dinner go ahead, she would invite one of our pickets to cross our picket line. They could then explain to the diners who had crossed our picket line why they shouldn’t have crossed our picket line. Okay, read that again. Got it? Did we accept the offer? As if.

The picket line reconvenes
The picket line reconvenes

The picket was back in place. By now, we had supporters from the local Trades Council, including the impressive Darren O’Grady (“and don’t forget Darren, standing his ground”), and from other unions, including current members of the band. We were incredulous at the actions of our local Labour Party – the party formed largely from the trade union movement.

Confusion reigned as some people arrived for the dinner. A small number went inside the college. Neil Gerrard, the former MP for the area, turned up and began to help turn people away. There was no sign of Stella Creasy or of Caroline Flint (I discovered months later that the Party feared a photo of a Shadow Minister crossing a picket line). We eventually found out that what was left of the guests, including Creasy and Flint, had gone to an Indian restaurant a few miles away to try to salvage the chaos (“better go for a curry instead”).

We had seen off the disgraceful threat to the strike. We disbanded our picket line and went to the pub (“you know this story ends up in the Rose & Crown”).

Those involved in organising the shambles might consider this: they could have postponed the whole thing a week before the event, held it on another night and raised some funds. Instead, they chose the dishonourable path and lost both money and credibility.  And Steve White & The Protest Family gained a dance number.

Lol

Top picture: legalcheek.com.
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Dandelions…

Protest plunker Russ takes some time out from trying to find where his wife has hidden his banjo to write about an extracurricular project he’s been working on…

This summer marks the hundredth anniversary of the battle of the Somme. One of the bloodiest battles in military history it cost more than a million casualties and achieved precisely nothing.

For many years the Somme, and the first world war in general, have been symbols of the waste and pointlessness of war. And especially how it’s the ordinary working folk who bear the brunt of the brutality and deprivations of conflict but never seem get very much out of it at the end. The Kings and Queens, the Generals and the rich folk play their games for high stakes one way or another but life for the ordinary folk just rolls on the same win or lose, just with less limbs and more broken hearts. Lions led by donkeys.

Lol laying down some hot anti war punkolin © ...
Lol in the studio laying down some anti war punkolin© …

Protest Family pal Steve O’Donoghue has written a powerful song recounting how his grandfather would refuse to wear a poppy because he refused to accept that the lions who fought in the trenches should have to stand side by side with the donkeys who sent them. I thought the song was direct and strong enough to make a real contribution so I took it to the No Glory campaigning group and to my delight they picked it up and are including it in their Somme centenary campaign to remember the truth about what happened in the so called Great War.

No Glory gave me a modest budget to turn Steve’s six minute unaccompanied folk song into something with a broader appeal. It was a fascinating process to develop the song. To songwriters every verse is like a child and it was a nerve wracking moment when I showed Steve how I’d edited the song to be half its original length, but he took it quite well!

When the Protest Family record we go into the studio with a pretty well rehearsed set and play more or less “live” in one go. With Dandelions I put together a super rough Garage band demo but didn’t have time to rehearse or work on the arrangements with the musicians I’d recruited. So we recorded the song by getting everyone to play as much as they could in the time available and then assembling the song in the final edit. So for example we got John on the drums to run through the song playing random rolls and fills so we could pick them up as needed at the end. I’ve never worked like that before and I was glad to have PF producer Steve Honest to hold my hand and take care of the studio wizardry.

All the kit!
Folk music..!

If I’d had the time I would have liked to have got my Protest Family comrades involved a lot more, but in the end I had to settle for Lol who put some superb mandolin down with the absolute minimum of fuss as he always does. One day he’s going to realise quite what a good musician he is and we’ll all be buggered.

I was really delighted that the entire ensemble that we did end up using, myself, Lol, John Davis on drums and the wonderful Eleanor Firman who is a respected classical composer and who took care of the orchestration all live within about a mile of each other. What astonishing talent there is behind every front door!

No Glory put a great video together to go with the song and you can see the end results here…

The song will be performed in a cut down acoustic setting at the No Glory commemorative concert in Hampstead on June 19th.

http://noglory.org/index.php/events/557-19-june-london-have-you-forgotten-yet-the-truth-about-the-somme

I wish we could sing it so loudly we wake those fallen lions from a sleep that they have slept too long. Then the donkeys would have something to be frightened of

 

 

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“From the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Bryant & May…”

matchwomen strike committee
The Matchwomen’s strike committee, 1888

On 2nd July, we’re playing the Matchwomen’s Festival for the third time in its four year history. Our greatest hit*, Right To Strike, begins with a tribute to some of the pioneering trade unionists of the 19th century.

You might be thinking, “How have a bunch of smelly blokes from east London got so involved with a women’s festival? And what’s Brian May got to do with this?”

Let me explain. First, it’s nothing to do with Brian May. Bryant & May was a company that made matches, originally in Bow in east London. In 1888, about 1400 women and girls working in their factory went on strike over long hours, poor pay, excessive fines and the horrific effects of working with white phosphorus, including mutilation and premature death. They formed a trade union. Soon, their resoluteness and ultimate success inspired the formation of trade unions across the country.

The union movement is important to us as a band and it matters to you, whether you realise it or not. Apart from anything else, without the work of trade unions, most of us would simply have no effective employment rights. That’s one reason why we’re proud to be playing the festival again.

The other reason is women. “Ah, so you’re playing it to attract women?” Er – no. We’re all taken, thanks. The Matchwomen’s fight proved that women didn’t have to be passive. Women could organise. Women could gain control. Women could win improvements for themselves.

That message continues to be vital. Between the members of the band, we’ve got six daughters. But we’ve also got partners, sisters, mothers, friends, workmates, neighbours… we want them to be inspired by those ‘ordinary’ women from the century before last. As we are.

Lol
*It got to about number 1,000 in the Amazon download chart, you know.

matchfest top 2016

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