This Machine Rising (2024)
Directed by Dave Stauble and Shawn Howard
https://dropkickmurphys.com , 56 minutes
★★★★
What first pops into your mind when someone says, “punk rock?” The Sex Pistols and the nihilism of John Lyndon (aka/ Johnny Rotten)? I hope not; they were a manufactured band, the invention of producer Malcolm McLaren seeking to cash in on a moment in musical history when mainstream rock had gone soft, disco was the rage, corporate music became dominant, protest music was marginalized, and hip-hop hadn’t quite arrived. In the late 70’s, I listened to a lot of punk and sub rosa protest folk because disco made me want to vomit mirror balls. I liked The Ramones, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, and some edgy UK and German stuff a friend in London routinely challenged me to sample. I never cared for punk culture; guess I was raised to be polite! Not to mention that I’m a pacifist whose idea of a good fight is one at least ten miles from me.
The more important point, though, is that punk (and some heavy metal) was/is working-class music. Originally punk espoused a DYI ethos. In an odd way that resonated with folk music, the sort that Pete Seeger used to exhort audiences to “just sing out!” In the 1990s I began to hear Celtic punk rock (Pogues, Flogging Molly, Oi Polloi, early Wolfstone….) A move to Massachusetts made me a Dropkick Murphys fan. If you have negative preconceptions about punk, the DKMs will destroy many of them. Put simply, the Dropkick Murphys are thoughtful people. You may have seen the name Ken Casey in the news. He’s the booming lead vocalist of Dropkick Murphys who recently visited Ukraine as a part of an aid convoy, has actively heaped opprobrium on Donald Trump, called out a fan wearing a MAGA shirt (and gave him a DKM shirt to wear instead!), raised money for former GOP governor Charlie Baker rather than endorse a Democratic machine candidate, and won a Mass Humanities storyteller award. He and his Dropkick pals (Matt Kelly, Al Barr, James Lynch, Jeff DaRosa, Tim Brennan, and Kevin Rheault, plus producer Ted Hut and manager Jeff Castelaz raise money for the Claddagh Fund to help organizations supporting kids, veterans, and families in crisis. And, if you don’t already know it, the band is Boston-born and bred.
You can learn about some of this stuff from their recent documentary that’s free on Dropkick’s YouTube Channel. It’s titled This Machine Rising and its very title confirms a punk/folk connection; it’s a play on the slogan Woody Guthrie had on his guitar: This Machine Kills Fascists. Guthrie wrote so many songs in his lifetime (1912-67) that new ones turn up all the time. Earlier, Dropkick Murphys had its first monster hit, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” a 7-line scribbling from Guthrie. Another popular BKM song, “Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight” also used Woody Guthrie’s lyrics. Nora’s son heard it and approached his mother about collaborating with BKM. Billy Bragg, Wilco, Dylan, Springsteen, and others have written music for some of the estimated thousands of unpublished Guthrie lyrics. In 2022, Woody’s sister Nora asked Dropkick Murphys to take a swing at them. What was supposed to be one album–This Machine Still Kills Fascists–organically spawned a second, Okemah Rising. A national tour began in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in September, and ended in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day 2024.
This short document shows Casey’s meticulous approach to going through the Guthrie archives. At times it feels as if the DKMs are more like Ph.D. students than punk rockers. The other thing that will strike viewers is the reverence the band paid to the material; Casey spoke of literally trembling while holding one of Woody’s original songs. Likewise, band members easily discourse on the careful approach they took to developing appropriate tunes to unscored lyrics. In other words, the Murphys interjected serious musicianship into the project, something that alerts us that if punk began as DYI music, it has evolved beyond that ethos. I’ll confess that it thrills me to hear punk raucousness filtered through bagpipes, squeeze boxes, and penny whistle. It’s equally a thrill to hear DKM unplugged as it were. Sometimes they do Guthrie acoustically; at others, Woody’s ghost plugs in with the band.
Hardcore DKM fans probably saw this documentary when it debuted last year. If you’ve not seen it, do so to see what good dude punk looks and sounds like.
Rob Weir
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