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Music

#OccupySXSW

There are some good live music clubs in Austin. But for the Occupy movement, there is no better venue than South By Southwest

With hoards of visitors in town for the festival, and more than enough supporters from SXSW attendees, the local Occupy movement didn’t waste the opportunity to broadcast its message.

Every night down 6th Street, the main artery of SXSW, a procession of Occupiers marched through with a variety of things to say, like Fuck The Police, Start You Own Dance Party, and of course Occupy SXSW.

On Friday night, the group staged their own unofficial SXSW event, with bands, mischief and a bit of hassle from the police.

Occupiers congregated outside the club Swan Dive and took to Twitter to announce special guests were on the way. Before too long, they had a mass of people, swarms of police, and Tom Morello.

“Good evening, Occupy South By Southwest. I am the Nightwatchman and I’m a one man revolution!” Morello yelled into the People’s Mic while standing on a bar table stolen from the club.

Fresh off his guest appearance with Bruce Springsteen, the former Rage Against The Machine guitarist and Nightwatchman guy was in finest quasi-revolutionary form, as he talked about solidarity, the power of people and the importance of unions – he even flashed his music union card.

“Anybody here work for a living? Tonight Austin’s a union town!” Morello fed the hungry crowd with lots more lines like this.

He then took the “People’s Stage” to perform Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land. Images from the Occupy protests around the world were flashed onto a nearby wall.

Like-minded muscians joined the movement as it progressed. Anti-Flag, Pittsburgh punks who release an album called General Strike this week, fit right into the mix. Detroit’s Wayne Kramer of the pioneering group MC5 was also present to occupy.

At this point, moshing was inevitable. Once it happened, police stepped in, but only to confiscated the Fuck The Police banner.

The protest concert continued into the night, with lots of occupy rhetoric, conversation about it all means, anger toward the Austin police chief and more music and moshing. (Though not everyone at SXSW was into this concert – a few meatheads came by to tear down Occupy signs.)

As far as I could tell, it ended peacefully…for this night anyway.

@joshuaerrett

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