How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine
Plenty of disgruntled kids first got hooked on Rage Against the Machine with the video clip for "Bulls on Parade". The song was a like big pot of crack-spiked honey to countless testosterone-happy teenage boys, and listening to it now, that’s no surprise. It bludgeons the listener from the outset with a heavy, see-sawing hook which segues into a nasty-as-fuck Zach De La Rocha rap backed by ominous funk. The clip was pretty sick too, combining Cliff Notes style left-wing political messages with MTV-friendly, sleekly produced rawk footage. I was fourteen years old when I first saw that clip, and I was a Rage junkie within weeks.
Thousands of black t-shirt wearing former teenagers of the 90’s would attest to the gratuitous stupor with which they embraced Rage. In what was a lazy, warless, beige era the band was pissed off, eloquent, loud, hard and fast. Like the early punks they deftly straddled left-wing elitism ("Tha power pendulum swings by tha umbilical cord") and meathead rebellion ("Fuck you I won't do what you tell me"). But instead of hocking tired three chord sanctimony like Green Day or The Offspring, they combined, like none before them, those two most archetypal of teenage genres: metal and hip hop. A veritable wet dream for angry, pubescent suburbanites like myself. Uncomfortable questions like why Rage were signed to a major record label didn't really come up.
Rage’s break-up in 2000 devastated fans, but no one was too surprised. Front man Zach's ill-temper is obvious to anyone who spins a Rage album, and by all accounts his anger was democratic: the band copped it almost as bad as his favoured lyrical targets. Famously, Rage had to be forced into an EMI imposed group house arrest to record 1996's Evil Empire, a full five years after their self-titled debut hit. This was no happy union.
But, more than that, Rage just wouldn’t have made sense in the Bush era. That’s not to say that their messages – distrust of government, anti-Americanism, rebellion, et al – weren’t appropriate for those eight vile years of international politics. On the contrary, Rage’s ideas have of late been more than appropriate, much more so than they were in the 90’s. But the point is that Rage pushed left-wing revolution at a time when liberal academics were blowing their loads over the ruined Berlin Wall. They were always fated to be a lone voice of dissent in mainstream music, and could never have survived the sycophantic violence of Bush’s first term or the gush of celebrity driven anti-war posturing a few years later.
So the break-up was long coming. Realistic fans were basically stoked that such a volatile group had managed to release three albums and a covers record. As with any break-up, though, there was the regret – in my case, the regret that I’d never seen them live. Like so many Aussie Rage fans, I missed them at the 1996 Big Day Out, and they never came back to Australia.
For a scary while there, the remaining members of Rage looked for a singer to replace Zach, with a view to maintaining the RATM franchise. But rather than signing up an angry rapper (among others, the names Chuck D and B-Real were thrown around) they went with Chris Cornell, the dastardly mustachioed prima donna who looked all weird in Soundgarden’s clip for “Black Hole Sun”. Audioslave were always pedestrian, dividing Rage fans between loyalists pissed-off at the watering down of the music and desperados clinging to anything produced by three members of their favourite band. After initially falling into the latter camp, I’ve accepted that the former had it right: Audioslave sucked.
And then, out of the blue and after a number of progressively shoddier Audioslave albums, Rage's 2007 "one-off" reunion to play Coachella. That show resulted in a dummy-spit by either Cornell or three-quarters of Rage, depending on who you believe, resulting in the dissolution of the supergroup and the sudden reformation of Rage. Next came the announcement that they were headlining Big Day Out. The concept of Rage back together was strange somehow, but die-hard Aussie fans were pissing their pants with excitement, and I couldn’t help but share it.
As Big Day Out approached, though, I had this weird dread about seeing Rage. Some of it was concrete: for example, accounts had it that Zach congratulated fans at some of the east coast shows for electing Kevin Rudd, a patently ludicrous position for someone so hard-left he’s lived with Mexican revolutionaries EZLN. But most of it was a vague looming apprehension. For the first time I was to see a band who’d meant so much to me as a teenager, but, truth be told, they didn’t mean so much anymore. After so many years, I’d gotten bored, kicked the habit, and moved on.
Rage took the stage at exactly 9:20pm on that stifling Perth evening of 2008’s final Big Day Out, right on schedule. Their sound cut out mid-intro, but they continued playing, oblivious, for a good couple of minutes before the boos of the crowd cut through their amps. It was about the most surprising moment of the show. Rage put on a workhorse effort, Zach leaping maniacally and stalking the stage like a giant-killer, his mic a sling; Tom Morello flawlessly executing ridiculous solos, his guitar screaming, moaning and breaking like Slash put through a DJ scratch set. Thing was, I’d seen and heard all this before.
Rage were just like they were on their live videos, only, something was missing. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was just me: the sweaty sea of shirtless, ripped, moshing bogans seemed to be enjoying themselves. But there was a palpable sense of death and nostalgia about the show. This was only enhanced by the fact that Rage played no new songs, nor did they do anything at all surprising or different. This was a bigger problem than it might be for other bands: for so long Rage demanded revolution, so it felt cheap that they’d decided to stick with formula.
Morello’s excuse is that Rage’s music hasn’t dated, and hell, maybe it hasn’t. But I was listening to it a decade ago, so it feels dated to me. Maybe fans should be thankful that we got to see Rage at all, or that they’re not going to release some terrible new album that will destroy their legacy. These are fair points. But nostalgia is a beast from hell. You’ve probably changed, but the music hasn’t.
Thousands of black t-shirt wearing former teenagers of the 90’s would attest to the gratuitous stupor with which they embraced Rage. In what was a lazy, warless, beige era the band was pissed off, eloquent, loud, hard and fast. Like the early punks they deftly straddled left-wing elitism ("Tha power pendulum swings by tha umbilical cord") and meathead rebellion ("Fuck you I won't do what you tell me"). But instead of hocking tired three chord sanctimony like Green Day or The Offspring, they combined, like none before them, those two most archetypal of teenage genres: metal and hip hop. A veritable wet dream for angry, pubescent suburbanites like myself. Uncomfortable questions like why Rage were signed to a major record label didn't really come up.
Rage’s break-up in 2000 devastated fans, but no one was too surprised. Front man Zach's ill-temper is obvious to anyone who spins a Rage album, and by all accounts his anger was democratic: the band copped it almost as bad as his favoured lyrical targets. Famously, Rage had to be forced into an EMI imposed group house arrest to record 1996's Evil Empire, a full five years after their self-titled debut hit. This was no happy union.
But, more than that, Rage just wouldn’t have made sense in the Bush era. That’s not to say that their messages – distrust of government, anti-Americanism, rebellion, et al – weren’t appropriate for those eight vile years of international politics. On the contrary, Rage’s ideas have of late been more than appropriate, much more so than they were in the 90’s. But the point is that Rage pushed left-wing revolution at a time when liberal academics were blowing their loads over the ruined Berlin Wall. They were always fated to be a lone voice of dissent in mainstream music, and could never have survived the sycophantic violence of Bush’s first term or the gush of celebrity driven anti-war posturing a few years later.
So the break-up was long coming. Realistic fans were basically stoked that such a volatile group had managed to release three albums and a covers record. As with any break-up, though, there was the regret – in my case, the regret that I’d never seen them live. Like so many Aussie Rage fans, I missed them at the 1996 Big Day Out, and they never came back to Australia.
For a scary while there, the remaining members of Rage looked for a singer to replace Zach, with a view to maintaining the RATM franchise. But rather than signing up an angry rapper (among others, the names Chuck D and B-Real were thrown around) they went with Chris Cornell, the dastardly mustachioed prima donna who looked all weird in Soundgarden’s clip for “Black Hole Sun”. Audioslave were always pedestrian, dividing Rage fans between loyalists pissed-off at the watering down of the music and desperados clinging to anything produced by three members of their favourite band. After initially falling into the latter camp, I’ve accepted that the former had it right: Audioslave sucked.
And then, out of the blue and after a number of progressively shoddier Audioslave albums, Rage's 2007 "one-off" reunion to play Coachella. That show resulted in a dummy-spit by either Cornell or three-quarters of Rage, depending on who you believe, resulting in the dissolution of the supergroup and the sudden reformation of Rage. Next came the announcement that they were headlining Big Day Out. The concept of Rage back together was strange somehow, but die-hard Aussie fans were pissing their pants with excitement, and I couldn’t help but share it.
As Big Day Out approached, though, I had this weird dread about seeing Rage. Some of it was concrete: for example, accounts had it that Zach congratulated fans at some of the east coast shows for electing Kevin Rudd, a patently ludicrous position for someone so hard-left he’s lived with Mexican revolutionaries EZLN. But most of it was a vague looming apprehension. For the first time I was to see a band who’d meant so much to me as a teenager, but, truth be told, they didn’t mean so much anymore. After so many years, I’d gotten bored, kicked the habit, and moved on.
Rage took the stage at exactly 9:20pm on that stifling Perth evening of 2008’s final Big Day Out, right on schedule. Their sound cut out mid-intro, but they continued playing, oblivious, for a good couple of minutes before the boos of the crowd cut through their amps. It was about the most surprising moment of the show. Rage put on a workhorse effort, Zach leaping maniacally and stalking the stage like a giant-killer, his mic a sling; Tom Morello flawlessly executing ridiculous solos, his guitar screaming, moaning and breaking like Slash put through a DJ scratch set. Thing was, I’d seen and heard all this before.
Rage were just like they were on their live videos, only, something was missing. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was just me: the sweaty sea of shirtless, ripped, moshing bogans seemed to be enjoying themselves. But there was a palpable sense of death and nostalgia about the show. This was only enhanced by the fact that Rage played no new songs, nor did they do anything at all surprising or different. This was a bigger problem than it might be for other bands: for so long Rage demanded revolution, so it felt cheap that they’d decided to stick with formula.
Morello’s excuse is that Rage’s music hasn’t dated, and hell, maybe it hasn’t. But I was listening to it a decade ago, so it feels dated to me. Maybe fans should be thankful that we got to see Rage at all, or that they’re not going to release some terrible new album that will destroy their legacy. These are fair points. But nostalgia is a beast from hell. You’ve probably changed, but the music hasn’t.
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