COP
ON FIRE - Dub punk from Belgium CON
ON FIRE are a quartet raised on dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike,
with a heart for todays activistmovement, reclaiming the streets, opening autonomous social
centres, dedicated to antifascism, sustainable living,... Oh, and they
don’t like cops. Raging sub-bass-dub and riotous ska is what you
get. DIY has been more than a label to the band as they've played just
about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related
pubs. This has meant putting up their own stage to play an activist
camp, squatting their own venues, fixing the band’s van on the
road (not seldom with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit
the samples out of a supermarket's wastebin,... But check out the tunes
and make up your own mind. BIO
COP ON FIRE Consisting of 4 people
who have a heart for dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike, C.O.F.
uses these influences to recreate feelings from daily life: sticking
it to The Man, taking a stand for Mother Earth, opening the bin for
bigoted morality and xenophobia of all kinds… Oh, and we don’t
like cops. Reclaim The Streets, opening autonomous social centres, Antifascist
Action, sustainable living, … action backed up by the flow of
drum and bass, a guitar crossing musical boundaries all thrown in a
mix of effects and echoes from the underbelly of society – the
samples. DIY has been more than a label to the band as we've played
just about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related
pubs. This has meant putting up our own stage to play an activist camp,
squatting our own venues, fixing our own van on the road (not seldom
with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit our samples out
of a supermarket's wastebin,... DIY does not trap us within borders
of a certain scene, so we gladly play different places as long as our
perfor-mance doesn't get any capital flowing towards any of the assholes
or companies trying to make a miserable life for the less privileged.
We don't care about music contests and shit alike, we don't care to
mention what bands we've played with, as all that is superficial and
irrelevant to what this band is about - even though we liked most bands
we've played with a lot. Naming names though, we've been influenced
by bands as diverse as Skatalites, Killing joke, Mad professor, Conflict,
The Clash, Amebix, Radical dance faction, Immortal technique, …
COF released a first cd-ep “Welcome To The Free Zone” march
2008, have changed drummers for the third and so they believe last time
and have released a split album in sep 2010 with australian activist
hiphopband combat wombat. Et
une petite chronique de l'album par l'ami Lionel du fanzine 442ème
Rue: Ah
que voilà un split CD pour le moins inusité. D'un côté
Cop On Fire, groupe de reggae-dub belge, de l'autre Combat Wombat, groupe
de hip-hop australien. Je ne m'étendrai pas sur ces derniers, le
rap, conscient ou pas, me fait profondément chier, j'y peux rien,
c'est comme ça. Pour ce qui est de Cop On Fire en revanche, voilà
un truc qui me fait nettement plus bander. Un reggae-dub qui fait la part
belle aux bidouillages sonores de toutes sortes puisque, en sus du trio
de base guitare-basse-batterie, le quatrième membre du groupe est
tapi derrière ses machines afin d'illustrer au mieux les textes,
minimalistes mais suffisamment explicites, de ses petits camarades de
jeu. Ca fait penser aux aventures reggae d'Inner Terrestrials, mais avec
les samples en plus, ou, plus loin de nous, au reggae militant des Babylon
Fighters. Les titres balancés par Cop On Fire ne souffrent aucune
ambiguité, on est bien là dans la prise de position radicale
et combattante ("Banks, no thanks", "The language of Kalashnikov",
"Corporate ass fuck", "Antifa dub"), et sûrement
pas dans le ska festif ploum ploum tralala plume dans le cul. Chez Cop
On Fire on réfléchit à son présent, surtout,
et à son futur, un peu, et on trouve peu de raisons de se réjouir
de la situation. Du coup, on le fait savoir sur des rythmiques lancinantes,
lourdes et puissantes la plupart du temps, ou, si l'on s'autorise quelques
pas de ska ("Ska 13"), c'est aussi pour éructer des mots
aussi tranchants qu'une chanson punkoïde. Ces 6 titres sentent la
poudre. Et pour parfaire votre information, ne zappez pas la partie CD
Rom qui vous propose une petite trentaine de bouquins (oui vous avez bien
lu, une trentaine), en format PDF, pour en savoir plus sur tout un tas
de sujets, l'écologie, l'anti-capitalisme, l'anarchisme, le végétarisme,
etc, etc... Des heures de lecture en perspective.
Born out of Leuven-Belgium’s activist squatting scene in 2004,
Cop On Fire have been putting up festive foun-dations of pumping drums
and sub-bass dub supporting their local scene. Local in this case is
as global as a good part of Europe as C.O.F. toured between Scotland
and Slovakia, though never playing Kortessem.
http://www.myspace.com/coponfireearth