Feb 11th PiH/Zanmi Lasante Fundraiser in Winnipeg
Considering the farcical attempts to dress up militarism in humanitarian clothing, real grassroots community based options to assist the relief effort in Haiti are needed more than ever.
An emergency relief fundraiser has been organized in Winnipeg on Feb 11th for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante’s incredible efforts in Haiti. Performers include John K. of the Weakerthans!! Here are some other events across Canada. Donations to highly recommended relief efforts which are actually respectful of Haitian sovereignty can be seen here: canadahaitiaction.ca …and finally, some context is provided by the excellent and uncompromising journalist and film-maker, John Pilger.
How To Clean, Less Talk digital EP to benefit Partners In Health.
So when I recently completed work on three previously unreleased/unfinished/unmixed recordings recovered from our How to Clean Everything and Less Talk, More Rock master tapes, me and jordy-boy began talking about releasing them publicly on a donation basis to cover the costs of recovering the tapes and to hopefully make a financial contribution to a progressive community initiative that reflected our core values.
About the same time we were mulling potential beneficiaries over, news began rolling in about a natural disaster unfolding in Haiti.
There’s no good place for a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to hit, but Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest (and most interfered with) nation, is definitely one of the worst.
According to the Canada-Haiti Action Network, the “illegal coup of 2004 (supported by the Canadian, French and US governments) has had an extremely negative impact on Haiti’s social fabricbreakdown in government services, including education and health care; increased poverty; decline of agricultural production…”
…so the last thing the people of Port-Au-Prince needed on top of this continuing foreign domination of their country was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to add to their misery.
In immediate terms, we obviously encourage people who want to help, to contact a trusted, pro-democracy aid organization directly. We recommend Partners in Health. PIH are a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care, specifically in Haiti. They were one of the groups we directed income to during the initial release of Supporting Caste and you people stepped up.
Hopefully you will again.
As a small but sincere gesture of solidarity — and in the spirit in which the songs were originally recorded — we’ll release these three vintage tracks as a digital download in late March and donate any profits to Partners in Health to help them continue their mission in the aftermath. Stay tuned.
thanks.
Kent Monkman Wins!
Kent Monkman, the artistic genius who generously let us use his “Triumph of Mischief” painting on the cover of Supporting Caste, has earned himself a nod on an album-cover-of-the-year list! Well deserved!
Copenhagen...
Hello party people.
So many of you who came out to any of our North American shows in the past couple of years may remember our pal Josh from the Rainforest Action Network, who stepped up to the mic before we played each night to let people know about the environmental catastrophe known as the Tar Sands project in Canada. Many of you spoke with him at the shows.
Well, Josh has been busy on the frontlines at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, resisting state intimidation and violence to put pressure on policy-makers to stop the freaks who prefer money to a sustainable future from continuing acts of total ecocide.
Fuckin A Josh!
2009, the year in review...
well my friends, what a year it is has been for us on this crazy, confused planet. it’s been 23 years since me and jord started Propagandhi and in many respects, 2009 has turned out to be one of the most interesting and rewarding years of them all.
not only did we manage to finally share the stage with some of the bands that actually inspired us to start Propagandhi back when we were teenagers in the mid-80’s — Bad Brains, Sacrifice, Cromags (ok, not the same stage per se, but same festival still counts!), SNFU (ok, well, we shared the stage with Chi Pig for 30 seconds when he walked up out of nowhere during our set and kissed me on the cheek still counts!), Clive Jones from Black Widow and the mighty MDC, we toured with some really great “new” bands comprised almost exclusively of awesome people: Paint it Black, Bridge and Tunnel, The Rebel Spell, Protest the Hero and Strike Anywhere to name but a few. Cheers to all of them!
Cheers also to the living freaks who have been insane enough to hitch a ride on our three-ring-circus as it bumbled across the planet: Keebler, Barney Barnyard Barnhole Red Nuts Barnabus, Ethan, Eton, Mr. D Hugill, Philippe “Fleep” Tremblay and Dewey D. Jackson have been brave enough to endure us on the road. Back home, Jason, Rob and Ruben try to make sense of our conflicting wishes and then bear the brunt of the incessant whining when they manage to make those wishes come true. i send sincere thanks to them. None of it would have happened — none of it — without them.
But among all the remarkable events that 2009 provided, none can compare to what happened on September 5th, when my son Francis-Riel Voyager arrived — with appropriate drama — on the 32nd anniversary of the lift off of the Voyager 1 space-probe. His cosmic namesake carried with it music, images and greetings in over 50 languages from earth’s incredible diversity of cultures on a golden phonograph record. Here in 2009 — the International Year of Astronomy — as Voyager 1 now approaches the known boundary of our solar system, we hope to send Francis out into the frontier of an individual life in the same spirit.
it’s a cold, hard world, but it’s also beautiful, full of love and potential and worth struggling to save from the sociopaths that dominate it.
peace to everyone, everywhere.
One week until the UK and Ireland!!
We’re in our final preparations for our journey to the UK and my sweet Ireland on Saturday. This journey is going to be a good one. We’ve been practicing hard and seem to be on track to melt some bananas! Joining us for some chaos on this tour tour are Protest The Hero, Strike Anywhere and Oi Polloi (in Edinburgh)! We have been conversing with The Devil. He mentioned to us that if you chant hard enough he may even make it up for an appearance..
See you soon! As always, bring your helmet in case the walls crumble and fall on your little skull.
Eh!
RAN/ PROPAGANDHI "STOP THE TAR SANDS" VIDEO
Hey there party people, how’s it going eh?
So for much of this year we’ve been trying to coordinate or tours with the people from the Rainforest Action Network who are in turn hooked up with regional indigenous activists trying to draw the public’s attention to the most destructive project on the planet: the tar sands in northern Alberta.
They’ve compiled a short video that we’re hoping you will not only watch, but help spread around to your community of friends, family and acquaintances. The goal is to put pressure on the Royal Bank of Canada (the largest investor in the ecocidal tar sands project) to stop pouring money into this insanity.
Alright peeps, let’s get to it!
(I apologize in advance for having to look at my stupid face and listen to my stupid voice in this video. I also don’t really think Beave is a moron. It just seemed funny at the time. Sorry Beave. I’ll let you punch me in the nuts for Christmas buddy)
Benefit Show Was A Success/Oi Polloi added to Edinburgh show!
Last weekends show with Sacrifice was amazing and, alongside having a great time, we raised $1000 dollars for Sage House, $500 for Sisters In Spirit, 500$ for WAVE, and $500 for The Haiti Action Network. Rad! Thanks to everyone for coming out to the party, it was a dream come true for us.
Our west coast tour with Rebel Spell was a great time and playing with Millions Of Dead Cops in Portland and Seattle was a total thrill for us!
As we continue our quest to play with bands that rule, we are very happy to announce that the mighty OI POLLOI will be playing in Edinburgh, Scotland with us, Protest The Hero, and Strike Anywhere! What a show!
Afghan women’s rights activist Malalai Joya will begin a tour across Canada tour for her book “A Woman Among Warlords” starting in Victoria on November 13th. She will be in Winnipeg on November 16th..She’s one of the most courageous(I mean it) people on earth. I hope you’ll go see her speak if you get the chance.
She is also speaking in the US the dates are here. She is in Berkely right now as we speak!
Long live the loud!
Dear Coaches Corner...
Here is a small example of Don Cherry, a commentator for Hockey Night In Canada, participating in the absurd war propaganda that we talk about in the song “Dear Coaches Corner.”
Propagandhi to play with SACRIFICE!
Winnipeg, Manitoba, November 7th, 2009!
We are playing with Sacrifice, Striker, and Evil Survives. One night only! This show is going to be amazing! We have basically dreamed of this chance to play with SACRIFICE for over 20 years.
To benefit some great local organizations, and so we do not sully our evening of thrashing with the stink of money, we will be donating our portion of the shows proceeds to :
Wednesday we begin our journey to Saskatoon for the first show of our Western Canadian tour. We’re playing with some awesome bands on this journey so show up early to see them all. We’ll also be heading down to Seattle and Portland to play with the legendary MDC! It should be great! The final stop of the trip will be Calgary, Alberta on Halloween! Make sure you bring your costume! No, not your usual punk outfit, a Halloween costume! Ha!
The Rain Forest Action Network will be accompanying us to the shows so stop by their table and see what’s up.
In December we will be heading to the Uk and Ireland for a few shows with Protest the Hero, and Strike Anywhere! We’re looking forward to this extravaganza of total wildness!
Beyond that, we’ve been hard at work on a bunch of new songs which are sounding great so far!
All is well…except my aching neck!