More Songs about Plants and Trees (Allied Recordings, 1990)

By SoDak

I loved Allied Recordings, run by John Yates. My Allied Recordings shirt, “Music for the Proletariat,” is threadbare. I wish I had another one. More Songs about Plants and Trees was the third release by this punk rock label, featuring Cringer, The Lookouts, Antischism, and Nausea. As suggested by the title of the compilation, each song addresses ecological degradation. I played this record a lot in 1990 and 1991. At the time, it was regularly featured on my radio show on KTEQ. As with so many things, these songs continue to be pertinent.

Side A:

The seven-inch record starts strong with Cringer, “Burn Down the Forest.” I was obsessed with this band in the late 1980s, given their ability to combine personal and political songs. I was thrilled to see them play in 1991, when they were on tour with Citizen Fish. Lance Hahn and Gardner Maxam were a great combination, writing catchy, melodic songs. This song has a nice hook. In the chorus, Lance sings, “Burn down the forest, poison all the land, now that we have made our beds, the world must lie in it.” Following the chorus the second time, he incorporates the IWW motto, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” into the song, indicating that the spoliation of the earth negatively affects the conditions of life. The song is short and to the point.

The second song is “Once Upon a Time” by The Lookouts, a band that included Lawrence Livermore who ran Lookout! Records and Tre Cool who later became famous as member of Green Day. For the most part I was indifferent to most records by The Lookouts, but I did enjoy an occasional tune. This song is okay. I appreciate it, even though it is my least favorite song on the record. It has a haunting tone, which is fitting for the subject. In the lyrics, Lawrence traces changes in the larger environment, depicting a past, in which animals thrived in an unpolluted landscape. He then notes that economic growth and technological development lead to the contamination of the land, air, and water, with all sorts of negative consequences.

Side B:

Flip the record. Shit gets real intense on this side with Antischism and Nausea. The opening bass lines of “Greedy Bastards” by Antischism still gives me chills. It is just a couple seconds, then the guitar, drums, and vocals create a powerful, frenetic force that carries through the rest of the song. Antischism were a brilliant band, with both female and male vocals. The back-and-forth between Liz and Scott singing was dynamic and created a wonderful energy. They clearly recognized that capitalism is a system predicated on constant expansion, which leads to wholesale environmental degradation, all for the accumulation of wealth by a handful of people. As they sing:

Let not another tree fall in the name of greed.
Not one more tribe “civilized” for the lust of money.
Not one more species forced extinct to fill the pockets of the scum
who would turn something so majestic into just another slum.
No, the greedy bastard will not be satisfied
until every tree has been cut down and every animal has died.

Let not another tree fall in the name of greed.
Not one more tribe “civilized” for the lust of money.
Not one more species forced extinct to fill the pockets of the scum
who would turn something so majestic into just another slum.
Before every inch of forest is covered with concrete
extreme measures must be taken so let’s fuck up their machines!
Greedy Bastards

In the middle of the song, Antischism “slows” things down to clearly articulate four lines that advocate direct action, as an important form of resistance. Here they present Earth First! tactics that increase the costs to capitalists, cutting into profit margins and preventing logging operations.

Every dozer that we get costs them thousands to replace.
Every truck that gets fucked up is another loss that they must take.
When the logging road is blockaded, the fuckers can’t get there
And when the trees have all been spiked the message sent is clear.

After these lines, the song returns to the mad rush, culminating in a line “yearning for the day when we rid the land of the scheme to lay nature to waste. Greedy Bastards!” Great song, wonderful people, incredible live shows, awesome band. Wish they were still playing music together. We need them.

The closing song, “Here Today…” by Nausea (the New York crust punk band), is the most intense. I liked Nausea’s Extinction record, but thought the production muffled the songs. In contrast, “Here Today…” is sharp, heavy, and powerful. The drums sound enormous. The guitar and bass are crushing. The opening twenty-seconds set up a brilliant, fast, driving song that makes me want to slam dance with friends, while singing along with Al and Amy, trading lines.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
once fertile land, now barren crust.
A “clear cut” path tred foolishly
into the grasp of industry.

They go on to highlight how capitalist forestry destroys “eon’s growth” for short-term profits. They also present the long-term consequences of this system:  

Cry of the seabirds, vanished with time,
waves no longer crash the shoreline.
The sea is now content to boil
weighted down with heavy oil.
Corpses cast out from the sea
rot on the shore, amidst debris.
Their skeletons slowly decompose
no longer sun to bleach the bones. 

Two-thirds of the way through the song, Nausea returns to the initial buildup at the start, then dives back into the foray, repeating the first four lines, before winding down the song.

Capitalism’s war on the earth is intensifying, especially with the new set of assholes in the White House. Not only do we need more songs about plants and trees, but we need mass, organized resistance to create an alternative to the current “grow-or-die” system. In the meantime, I want to say fuck you to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who is working on behalf of Trump, the neofascist asshole, to destroy more plants and trees on public lands. Protect Bears Ears National Monument from despoliation by private interests.