Revolving Door
December 15, 2011 by Dan Patton
“I would love to,” said filmmaker Michael Moore, “as long as I can sing...”
So began development on “Music for Occupy,” an album due for release in Winter 2011. Intended to celebrate the Occupy Wall Street Movement by amplifying the lyrics, melodies and rhythms of those who support it, contributing artists include everyone from Devo to David Crosby and DJ Logic to Yo La Tengo, with a drum circle thrown in for good measure.
The story behind the music includes all the passion and controversy of the movement itself: individual longing for change gets collectivized by rebellious youngsters and old hippies, they plan to give away the profits of their truly marketable Occupy Wall Street commodity and they simultaneously declare, “this project is in no way, shape or form endorsed by the Arts or Music Working Groups at Occupy Wall Street.”
Producer Jason Samel remembers the moment the idea came to him. He was running a New York-based insurance brokerage with his father when, “the occupation pops up in my backyard.” He made his first visit to Zuccotti Park on day three.
“The sound of a harmonica hit me,” he remembers. “Then a guitar. Then I found this guy named Matt. He was playing on the stairs. He came from Maryland just to hang out and keep people’s spirits up.”
Like many of the people drawn to New York that summer, Samel could use a lift. His company was struggling to deal with the scraps left over from the banking industry’s worldwide dine and dash. His previous career, selling HR Administration products, had ended when the industry began to disappear, taking the possibility of a fallback option with it. His wife was pregnant.
But he was also a singer songwriter who had written his first classical piano piece when he was 16 — “Not the greatest song, but nevertheless I love it” — and he had scored success through his website, musicforegypt.com, and a video titled, “Tahrir Revolution,” that generated 50,000 hits. When he heard the music in Zuccotti Park, it all seemed to make sense.
“I have to find a way to shine a light on this guy,” he decided. “I have to shine light on all the people in this park.”
Though he did not know it at the time, he had already planted the idea’s seeds in fertile ground. “I had bought occupyeverywhere.com,” he remembers. “The first to contact me were Michael Moore’s people. After he came along, we just started calling a whole bunch of different musicians and everybody said wow, just tell me who we talk to.” Later, at a Jane’s Addiction concert, he explained the project to a woman who responded, “Oh I run a recording studio down the block from here.”
Currently, along with co-producers Maegan Hayward and Alex Emanuel, Samel is “bringing on new major and minor artists every day. We have hip hop. We have reggae. We have rock. We have musicians who are in Zucotti Park playing on the steps. We have people who are homeless. We have people from all over the world. We’re even listening to some show tunes.”
Impressive, indeed. Succesfull, probably. Yet it is it not and will not be endorsed by Occupy Wall Street. “They don’t want to be a brand,” Samel explains. “I know what I think will fix the entire country, but that’s just one opinion.”
With all the ideological noise stirring up trouble throughout the world, Occupy Wall Street’s official silence sounds perfect: music is nothing unless people listen. “There’s a moment in every drum circle where everybody locks” Samel concludes. “It’s called ‘pulse.’”