THE HAYMARKET SQUARES
PLUSH
Tuesday, Dec. 1
“Who fucking planned this? / They should be fired / Can’t you finish
one thing / before you start another?”
That lyric could be about the last couple of years in downtown
Tucson, but it’s actually a cry from the heart of Phoenix regarding
construction of the light-rail system. The words inspired in the Plush
audience an unfamiliar sense of empathy for our brethren from the
north. We might reflexively regard Phoenicians as homogeneously
cretinous, but these Haymarket Squares guys are different. With such
small steps, revolutionary roads are traveled.
No Tucsonan could diss our capitol city with such zesty panache as
the Haymarket Squares. They know the place that much better. Top-shelf
venom coursed through a new song about Sheriff Joe, but throughout the
set, the band’s premium, metro-Phoenix snaps filled the room with
knowing chuckles.
Fortunately for their prospects outside of Arizona, most Haymarket
Squares songs focus on more universal themes: one part war, a couple
parts religion, and one part activist smörgåsbord
(environmental, food and animal cruelty; the economy; solidarity).
Chicago’s Haymarket Square is notoriously the site of an 1886 labor
rally that anarchists turned into a riot when police tried to shut it
down. Several people died. The echoes of that event were very much
alive in what the Haymarket Squares call their “Punkgrass for the
People.”
Parachute instructor and band founder Mark Sunman got the idea for
the band when he bought a mandolin and started listening to ’90s
anarchist punks This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb. It wasn’t clear if he’s ever
heard of Bill Monroe, though. About the only link to bluegrass was
acoustic instrumentation, including upright bass, banjo and
mandolin.
Such change-the-world folk hasn’t been heard much since Joan Baez
and Pete Seeger, except by punk rockers. The Haymarket Squares honored
the first principles of punk: velocity, volume and the virtue of D.I.Y.
(Example: They made CD covers by hand from recycled beer cartons.)
Band members reported, by the way, that the light-rail mess has
turned out well. They say it’s contributing to the growth of a pretty
cool scene. Perhaps a few Tucsonans should trek up there and show some
solidarity with the handful of like minds.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
Shame on the TW for endorsing a bunch of self-confessed anarchists! The Haymarket Squares are nothing more than a bunch of unpatriotic ungrateful, subversive hooligans. Their type of anti-American music is undermining the very fabric of out social and family values. They have no respect for our sheriff, our government, or our American way of life. I believe in the constitution, but a persons “Freedom of speech” can only be allowed to go so far. When you start to corrupt our children and teach them to disrespect the government and the Church, your “Free speech” has infringed on the right of the community to raise it’s children in peace. It’s time for Respectable Citizens to stand up to these subversive creeps! I urge everyone who reads this to call Sheriff Joe Arpaio today at (602) 876-1801 and demand that he arrest these criminals!