Avant-garde-jazzers-cum-hip-hopping-revolution-talking Commie pinkos Junkyard Empire drop new disc

by Dwight Hobbes | 9/1/09 • In the just-because-you're-paranoid-doesn't-mean-they-aren't-out-to-get-you department, how much would you like to bet the FBI has a file on avant-garde-jazzers-cum-hip-hopping-revolution-talking Commie pinkos Junkyard Empire? If I was the Bureau, I sure would.

They've been spouting wondrously articulate insurrectionist sentiment from jump-behind insanely imaginative music-and just came back from a well-received jaunt to, of all places, Cuba. After having done a series of gigs in the Twin Cites they dubbed the Anti-RNC Tour. Oh, yes. Big Brother's watching.

Frankly, he needs to be. The lyrics—strongly from the old-school book (think The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron)—kick radical thought like it's alright. One of my favorites is "Complex Crooks." There's cutting-edge and there's cutting-edge, but this cut is cold-blooded serious with lines like "Witness the days of corporate welfare / Forty-five million with no healthcare." And it was written long before our economy officially tanked. It'd be something and a half for these guys to do a double bill with, say, anarchist poet-essayist Chris Shillock or, maybe, spoken-word-ace-cum-political-gadfly David Daniels.

Junkyard Empire just signed a label deal with Media Roots, following their independently released discs Rise of the Wretched and Reclaim Freedom. The first EP on Media Roots is Rebellion Politik and JE are doing a release event at the Cedar Cultural Center this Friday, September 4 to kick it off. They're on a bill with dissident journalist and Truth Out correspondent Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books). Tickets are on sale from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674, ext. 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb. $10 advance, $12 day of show.