Tag Archives: punk

After 100 Episodes of The Rebel Beat, We Select our Top 5

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Rebel Beat 100

We just hit a huge milestone for The Rebel Beat podcast on May 1st when we dropped the 100th episode of this show.  As you may know, I launched this show back in February 2015 as a live radio show on CKUT community radio in Montreal.

The Rebel Beat morphed out of a previous radio show I had been hosting for almost a decade prior, Roots Rock Rebel. Roots Rock Rebel was ska, punk, and reggae show. While it always had a political bent to it, I really wanted to change it up and build a show that centred radical politics in music. The powerful uprising and riots against police brutality in Ferguson in 2014 were really the catalyst for making this change, and hence The Rebel Beat was born.

Originally The Rebel Beat was a weekly show that aired every Wednesday from 10pm-12am on CKUT. As a weekly show, it was easy to churn out a ton of episodes, but it also involved an extreme amount of labour to research music on specific themes or topics, book interviews, research those interviews, haul crates of records down to the station every week…. you get the picture.

So in 2016 I made the hard decision to pull the show from the FM radio airwaves, and instead keep it up as a monthly podcast. Along the way, I joined forces with Firebrand Records, got to speak with some of my musical heroes, and kept producing a show that I really love and believe in.

So on this milestone of 100 episodes, I wanted to look back and select my 5 favourites. If you’re new to this podcast, these 5 are a great place to start. Continue reading →

Episode 100: A Mayday Love Letter and Collective Playlist

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This is it! We’ve finally reached the milestone of 100 episodes of The Rebel Beat. And to make it all the more sweet, this is our Mayday special!

Franklin Lopez, long-time anarchist agitator, video ninja, and founder of Submedia is back to co-host as we discuss the history of The Rebel Beat, the significance of Mayday, the Wet’suwet’en uprising against pipelines, and staying rebellious in these pandemic times.

PLUS, we have a ton of Mayday greetings and shoutouts from artists and rebels all over the world! So this episode is part collective playlist, and part collective love letter from us to you on this socially-distant Mayday.

Like this podcast? Then support us!

www.patreon.com/rebelbeatradio

Tracklist

Brivele – Bread and roses

Geoff Berner – Dalloy polizei

The Mayday Orchestra – Center of the storm

Lia Rose – We are the ones

Ramy Essam – Hela hela

Chumbawamba – Voices that’s all

Dolly Parton – 9-5

A Tribe Called Red – Land Back

Rebel Diaz – Which side are you on? (Remix)

Immortal Technique – 3rd world

Leslie Fish – Bella ciao

The Proclaimers – The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues

Ana Tijoux – Antifa dance

Lee Reed – The rents

Kareem Samara – Light for S.H.

Norman Nawrocki – We are pickers and packers

Dennis Brown – Revolution

Pat Kelly – The workman’s song

Victor Rice – Bebida

Union Thugs – Héros et martyrs

The Rebel Beat’s Best of 2017

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The year is almost up, and we get ready to turn our calendars on a year that has been marked around the world by rising sea levels, rising far-right movements, and rising repression. Luckily, there will always be social movements out there to confront these injustices, just as there will always be artists and musicians ready to put a deadly beat behind a righteous message.

As we get ready for 2018, here are some highlights of radical music and podcasts that we have enjoyed at The Rebel Beat throughout 2017. If you dig these artists, and if you have some cash to spare, do consider buying their music, as this is really the only way to support independent music in our digital age.

Also, if you enjoy The Rebel Beat, please consider throwing $1 per month (or more!) our way! You can sign up easily on our Patreon page today.

Oh, and we’re about to release the next episode of our podcast, which will feature an interview with Lido Pimienta! So if you don’t wanna miss that, subscribe today on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you like to get your podcasts.

 

Fiver – “Audible Songs From Rockwood”

Fiver (aka. Simone Schmidt from Toronto) is a phenomenal singer-songwritter who crafted this amazing album based on the archives of a women’s prison that locked people up in southern Ontario from the 1850s-1870s. It’s hard-hitting, insightful, and the wild thing is that pretty much all the issues that Fiver sings about on the album can still be seen in the prison industrial complex today.

 

Continue reading →

The Rebel Beat 079: Hitting the Ice With Propagandhi

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Welcome to the latest episode of The Rebel Beat! Class war on the dancefloor, delivered to you once a month, in a podcast.

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Our special guest on the show this month is Jord Samolesky, drummer and founding member of Propagandhi! We spoke with Jord while he was in Montreal touring the band’s new album “Victory Lap”. We spoke about the history of the band, the state of the world, and most importantly, hockey!

Plus we hear some new stuff from Ryan Harvey, Shireen Lillith, Kareem Samara, Talib Kweli, and the Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

Finally, in our Turn it Up segment, we give another shout out to Lido Pimienta for carving out positive spaces for women of colour in the music scene. Read more about that here.

***Support The Rebel Beat!***
Sign up on our Patreon page for as little as $1/month, and get some great swag!
www.patreon.com/rebelbeatradio

 

Playlist

Snotty Nose Rez Kids – KKKanada

Talib Kweli – All of us

Propagandhi – And we thought nation-states were a bad idea

Propagandhi – Fuck the border

Propagandhi – Victory Lap

Propagandhi – Dear Coach’s Corner

Propagandhi – Resist/comply

Ryan Harvey, Shireen Lillith, Kareem Samara – Omar

A Tribe Called Red w/ Lido Pimienta – For you (The Light pt. 2) 

 

Check out the video for “Omar” by Ryan Harvey, Kareem, and Shireen!

The Rebel Beat 077: Nazim & Rap Battles for Social Justice

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Welcome to the Rebel Beat, a Firebrand Records podcast! This is your monthly dose of Class War on the Dance floor, hosted by Aaron Maiden.

It’s September, class is back in session, and to help us fuse the old school with the new school, educate, agitate, and organize, we’re gonna be introducing you to a Rap Battle like you’ve never heard of before – the Rap Battles for Social Justice based outta Montreal. Our special guest on the show is one of their coordinators, Nazim. Nazim is also an amazing MC in his own right. Check out his stuff here.

***If you like The Rebel Beat, support us!
Donate for as little as $1/month, and get some awesome swag in return:
www.patreon.com/rebelbeatradio

In our Turn It Up segment, we honor Lido Pimienta an Indigenous Colombian artist based in Toronto, who just won the Polaris Music prize for Best Canadian Album of 2017! Check out “La Papessa” by Pimienta here.

**Playlist**
Billy Bragg and Wilco – all you fascists
Downtown Boys – A wall
Propagandhi – Victory lap
Lycka Till – Gaza
Nazim – Ta3ban
Nazim – Back to Egypt
Nazim – Diaspora blues
Rap Battle for Eco-Justice track
Lido Pimienta – Agua

Rebel Beat Summer Playlist

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What’s up Rebel Beat massive! Hope you all have been having a great summer so far. Inspired partly by our homies at SubMedia who have made some amazing music playlists this summer, and partly inspired by our need and desire to keep sharing and amplifying the rhythms and rhymes of resistance, we’ve put together a special Rebel Beat playlist for you all to rock out to this summer. There’s a bit of everything here – some punk, some folk, some hip-hop, and some new tunes from Firebrand Records. Enjoy!

 

The Rebel Beat Podcast 062 – Curtain Call at CKUT, Re-ignition with Firebrand

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Boom! Welcome back with another edition of The Rebel Beat podcast, and this one is a HUGE one for us. Sadly, this episode marks the end of The Rebel Beat as a weekly show at the mighty CKUT radio in Montreal. It’s been a beautiful 10-year run for me doing live radio on Wednesday nights at CKUT, and I’ve finally decided to give it up so that I can make time for other things in life.

BUT FEAR NOT! This is far from being the end for The Rebel Beat! As you’ll hear in this podcast, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re teaming up with Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), Ryan Harvey, and the whole family at Firebrand Records to keep The Rebel Beat going as a monthly Firebrand podcast!

So even though the show will only be coming out once per month, and might be a bit shorter than 2 hours, we’ll still be bringing you all the amazing interviews and music from revolutionary musicians that you’ve come to expect.

So, be sure to subscribe now in iTunes, Stitcher, or anywhere else you get podcasts! We’re gonna take a bit of a break, and then come back to re-launch the show with Firebrand in July. Continue reading →

The Rebel Beat Podcast 061 – Rhythms of Kurdish Resistance

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Welcome back to another weekly podcast of The Rebel Beat! IMPORTANT REMINDER: This will actually be our second-to-last weekly edition of the show that airs on CKUT radio. After next week, we’re slowing down a little bit, and switching to a monthly show. So, make sure you subscribe now to our podcast! Get it here on iTunes, Stitcher, and all your other favourite podcast platforms.

This week on the show, we have a special focus on Kurdish resistance music. Our playlist of rousing fight songs was curated by Kurdish comrades in Montreal and Toronto, and we also have an interview here with Xebat, Sores, and Melis. Xebat and Sores are Kurdish activists now based in Montreal, and Melis is a Turkish solidarity activist and member of Rojava Solidarity Montreal. Among other things, we talked about the current situation in Rojava (a Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria), the role of women in the struggle, and the importance of music in inspiring resistance. Continue reading →

The Rebel Beat Podcast 060 – Happy Smashy MayDay with Submedia!

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May 1st in Montreal, during the 2012 student strike

 

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HAPPY MAYDAY, PROLES!! Welcome back to our weekly podcast of The Rebel Beat! This week, it’s our special to honour May 1st! Celebrated all around the world by masses of workers, downtrodden, unemployed, rebels, and all of us hungry for a better world, May Day is a day to celebrate all of our struggles and resistance against capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and any other force that keeps us down.

Frank from Submedia.TV was back in studio with us for our last collaboration at CKUT! As usual, he brought in some amazing tunes to big-up workers AND non-workers struggles, and also an awesome interview on the current #NuitDebout movement in France. Continue reading →

The Rebel Beat Podcast 059 – Howl Arts Festival Inspires Montreal

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Boom! Welcome back to another weekly edition of The Rebel Beat! Just a reminder that in a few weeks, we sadly won’t be doing this on a weekly basis any more, so if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast yet, do it now on iTunes or Stitcher! And, no matter where you subscribe, be sure to leave us a review and rating!

This week on the program, we bring you an overview of the annual Howl Arts Festival in Montreal. If you’re not familiar with the Howl Arts collective, they are a grouping of radical activists and artists in Montreal, trying to bridge the divides between culture and social movements. Not only do they put on amazing concerts and release amazing music, but they also organize interventions where artists speak out against gentrification, austerity, and police brutality. All said, we have a lot affinity with them here at The Rebel Beat. Continue reading →