Hear and Now

Local musicians with something to say get their chance with PeaceSongs CNY

Music has always been a powerful communication tool for all types of social and political messages. Whether it’s Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” or anything from Woody Guthrie to Rage Against the Machine, social topics in music have long been scattered throughout the cultural fabric of each generation.

Yet sometimes those messages get lost among the masses of available music, and it’s a rare occasion whenever a protest song cracks the Top 40 countdown. (Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks,” for instance, brings social issues of school violence to mind.) Just because these songs aren’t always on the radio or YouTube, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there or that musicians lack something to say.

Six months ago a project came together combining an idea from Le Moyne College student Amber MacDuffie and the efforts of the Syracuse Peace Council to help draw these songs from local musicians: PeaceSongs CNY. The SPC helped spread the word about collecting songs on topics of peace and social justice, had a committee judge the best submissions and are planning to compile the winners on an album to be released in early 2012. And Syracuse New Times readers will get the chance to help decide the final tracks. More about that later.

MacDuffie, 29, is an accounting major at Le Moyne, as well as a musician and songwriter. “Originally I called it Songs for Peace,” she recalls of her idea, “and I wanted to solicit different organizations and see who wanted to take on the project.” But after visiting the Axis of Justice website, a non-profit organization run by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Serj Tankian of System of a Down that brings musicians and activists together to fight for social justice, MacDuffie came across a key group that would fit right in. “I went to the {Axis} link that said `Trusted Organizations in Your Area’ and the Syracuse Peace Council was listed, so I immediately went to them and they said, ‘This is a great idea.’” MacDuffie envisioned the project taking a fairly long time to coalesce, yet the SPC insisted they make it happen as part of their current 75th anniversary celebra tion.

So the SPC formed a committee to take control of the project, including SPC members such as Jack Brown of Sophistafunk (pictured left), Jill Austin, Barbara Humphrey, Andy Mager, Mayer Shevin and Kate Wirshing.

Brown was on board from the start. “It definitely jumped out to me as a great idea because it was something I had been trying to do on my own when it came to linking artists and conscious minds and musicians around the community,” he says in a phone interview while touring Colorado with his band. “I was glad that Andy {Mager} came to me about it right away because from day one I was like, ‘OK, how can we make it real? How can we make it possible? How can we jumpstart this into a long-running project?’” Friends of the SPC, musicians, newspapers, radio and other connections were encouraged to spread the word about the project. The committee quickly received 41 musical submissions to be considered for the compilation. “I wasn’t shocked, but I was pleasantly surprised,” Brown recalls. “It shows there’s an interest in the community to actually submit songs of peace and positive music, and also it was really cool to see an array of music, not just one genre. Many genres, many styles.”

The committee soon winnowed the proposed songlist—including entries submitted by Karen Savoca and Peter Heitzman, Jamie Notarthomas, Jane Zell, One Black Voice, Syracuse Community Choir and Colleen Kattau (pictured right)—but then realized they were in a troubling position: How could they fairly choose the last songs to be included? (“We were definitely concerned about being just that panel that knows all or something,” Brown recalls.) The answer was obvious: Let the public decide.

MacDuffie saw the value of that idea.

“It was difficult to sit down and have all these songs that were good, some that were just so powerful and so clearly going to be on the CD,” she says. “But then the question came up of how can we get the community more involved? How can we reach out? How could we turn this into more people getting turned onto the project? How can we create more of a buzz?”

That’s where New Times readers come in. From Wednesday, Dec. 21, through Jan. 15, the birthday of influential peacemaker, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., readers can vote through the New Times website, www.syracusenewtimes. com by clicking the peace sign on the home page. After the final songs are determined, engineer extraordinaire Jocko of More Sound Studio will mix and master the album, a service he offered voluntarily to the project. A CD release party, already in the planning stages, is expected early in the new year.

“{Jocko} just cleaned up and won five Syracuse Area Music Awards (Sammys) in five different categories of albums he produced this past year,” Brown says. “So yeah, Jocko’s obviously one of the more respected engineers in the city. We approached him and he immediately sent back that he’d be honored to master the disc for free. That was a very nice way of him to reach out. He’s a very conscious-minded person and also a very socially aware person, so I was very happy to hear that he’d be part of the project.”

MacDuffie hopes the project can be duplicated in the future, and that non-musicians and students will also throw their hats into the ring. “The community needs to know that they can record a song in their bathroom and submit it on a little recorder and, hopefully in the future, that 18-year-old who has a little rap song or little group will want to submit,” she says.

Brown, a very active musician in Syracuse and nationally, was likewise excited to see so much participation. “There are a lot of people out there writing about the issues that might not get the mouthpiece or get seen or heard,” he says. “But if you go to any small town, any city—they are there somewhere. Commercial support might not be there, but especially in our city, we’re out there, and there’s an audience that wants to hear it. I really believe strongly in this. Syracuse is my home city and I just love to develop the scene and give the musicians a platform to be heard.

To hear the already selected songs and learn more about the Syracuse Peace Council, visit  www.peacecouncil.net.

To vote on the final tracks, click here.

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