Thanks to the hard work of the talented Jorden of No Dice Ink, we are proud to announce the release of an animated video for “The Baghdad Shuffle”! Give it a watch and let us know what you think.

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Molotov Rocktail on Vinyl

Additionally, our new album, Molotov Rocktail, will be available on 12″ vinyl as of June 29th. We’ll be releasing it as part of our Sled Island Festival show at the Palomino (109 7 Ave NW - Calgary). Noon. Check us out and come score some sweet vinyl!

See you on tour!
The Martyr Index
TMI on myspace
TMI on facebook
Comrades of the Martyr Index
download Molotov Rocktail!

The Molotov Rocktail Tour

May 01 - Kelowna, BC
May 02 - Vancouver, BC
May 03 - Seattle, WA
May 04 - Portland, OR
May 05 - Eugene, OR
May 06 - Medford, OR
May 07 - Arcata/Eureka, CA
May 08 - Chico, CA
May 09 - San Francisco, CA
May 10 - Berkeley, CA
May 11 - Sacramento, CA
May 13 - Reno, NV
May 14 - Salt Lake City, UT
May 15 - Idaho Falls, ID
May 16 - Helena, MT
May 17 - Spokane, WA

Calgary-based Meter Records and The Martyr Index are proud to announce the offering of TMI’s new album “Molotov Rocktail” for permanent free download as of Saturday, April 12, 2008.

Unlike similar offerings from several high profile artists like Radiohead and NIN, the move by The Martyr Index and partner label Meter Records represents a real shift to a committed “free distribution” model. The offering is a rebellion against the traditional music industry paradigm, representing a more progressive “free distribution” model.

Lead guitarist Marek Vermin credits their support of the new approach to the band’s independent spirit, “Independent music has always survived the various economic and technological transformations that have upset music capitalism and today is no different. Today, the executives steering the bloated entertainment industries are terrified of the possibility of people hearing music without paying for it. Music is written to be heard. Everything else is peripheral, but the music industry has been treating it in the exact opposite manner for too long. It’s time to take our music back!”

Local record label, Meter Records is enthusiastic about the release. “We’re proud to work with The Martyr Index to make “Molotov Rocktail” available for free download as part of Meter’s shift to a model based on free distribution of album music. We couldn’t be happier that this kind of committed and innovative change is happening in Calgary – a city known for its ‘indie’ spirit and history,” said Meter Records founder, Dean Rudd.

The sophomore effort is a blistering new collection of TMI’s signature brand of energized, socially conscious rock n’ roll, and is a celebration of independent rock spirit. The 14 track album features several politically charged tracks including, “Hacienda Luisita”, “Calgary Libre”, and “Oso Blanco” a song inspired by a Cherokee/Choctaw whose outlaw antics of robbing US banks to donate money to the Zapatista Rebels and the poor and dispossessed in Chiapas saw him dubbed “Robin the Hood” – a title and record which would later see him sentenced to 80 years in U.S. prison. The new album also features the first recordings with new vocalist Jenny Kost.

The free record is available here: http://themartyrindex.com/downloads

About Meter Records
Meter Records believes in the liberation of album music for the purpose of greater reach and proliferation of music in general. As a self-proclaimed “Artist Advocate” our mission is to empower artist partners to best connect with fans so that they can continue to do what they love, and do what they do best: make music. Above all else, we’re passionate about the musical pursuits of our Partners. We serve as a comprehensive partner in our artists’ affairs, facilitating and encouraging artist operation and achievement.

Marek Vermin (MV): We’ve been around since 2001, but we’ve been through a number of line-ups. The only members of the band that have been with us since the beginning are myself and Casey. The band was founded as a collective, but lots of bands say that and no one ever seems to know what exactly that means. We were the same. It was basically a position about our ideological stance. A loose consensus was the formula for band decisions, but there was no formal structure with a constitution or anything.

We have always been involved in community-building and resistance movements, so we’ve played a lot of benefits, like Rock Against Racism, Rock For Choice, an Anti-G8 benefit, Rock Against Tuition, and have been involved with promoting concerts to help fund worker co-ops and community initiatives. We keep meaning to tour outside of North America, which is our stomping grounds, but we can never seem to be able to afford it. Until recently, the band had six members (we’re now five), so flying that many people off continent is super expensive. Additionally, Canada’s arts funding group, FACTOR, used to provide tour grants to help bands get out, but now they are almost impossible to get because big artists like Nickleback or some shit are scoring all of the funding. So we have been hoping to get to the Philippines for a long time, but we have to wait until the right time when we can afford to get there on our own. I have been involved in research and activism dealing with international issues for a long time, so actually being in the places we sing about is a high priority for us.

Band members and band influence please?

Marek Vermin: guitar, lead vocals
Jenny from le bloc: lead vocals
Jimmy James: guitar
Ian “the Baker” Maki: bass
Casey: Drums

MV: We’re influenced by a wide variety of music. I’ve been into a wide range of stuff, everything from Arabic pop and folk music to Aus Rotten and Thin Lizzy, and I think a lot of that influences the songs I write. If I could write like anyone, though, I would choose to be able to write songs like Bruce Springsteen or Phil Lynott. Ideologically, I think I’m most influenced by anarchist thinkers like Kropotkin, Bakunin, Goldman, Bookchin, Malatesta, and so forth, and philosophically I have been inspired by the likes of Foucault, Derrida, Hegel, Zizek, Lacan, Schelling, and information theory. You’ll find this stuff scattered all over the lyrics I write, but I try to make the words accessible. I know that these ideas are complex, but they shouldn’t be alienating. At the same time, the world we live in is complex and a lot of bad ideas come to the fore because we think we can simplify the world. I think that this is partially why religion and conspiracy theories are so attractive, because they offer simple solutions for why things are the way they are. They create these grand narratives that pretend to explain everything. Once you believe in it, everything you encounter can be explained in terms of that idea. I know people are smarter than that, but I think that emotionally it is more appealing to have a simple ‘truth’, even if you know better. I try to use the music as a vehicle to explain that there is always a wider narrative than what you might otherwise think.

Casey Lewis (CL): Well, when the Martyr Index started out, musically, it was a little more eclectic, and also a little more punk rock. I would say that early TMI stuff took a bit of a cue from bands like the Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, incorporating a sort of “roots punk” vibe, bringing in all sorts of different musics from around the world. There was a bit of reggae, a bit of ska, a bit of African jazz, a LOT of folk music, like Guthrie and Dylan, and then of course, a great deal of Punk Rock. Over time, we started to incorporate more of a straight-ahead rock n’ roll thing, a lot of what we like to call “butt rock”, stuff like AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, etc. A lot of ’70’s hard rock. A lot of the “world music” stuff got phased out in favour of straight-up boogie down rock n’ roll, and I, for one, am ok with that…:)

Jenny From Le Bloc (JFLB): I’m mostly influenced by male singers, I think because I have such a deep and manly voice. If I ever got compared to Jack Black, I would probably die of happiness. I also really love Ronnie James Dio, Josh Homme, Bruce Springsteen, Brody Dalle…. I’m drawn to singers that are powerful and raw, but also technically accomplished. On the other hand, I also really love Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, that Motown-y soul scene… so incorporating elements of those influences into my role in The Martyr Index has been a really cool experiment.

How is the local punk/hardcore scene there in canada?

MV: It is hard to say. Canada is a huge place, really. It is hard to wrap your head around what’s going on in a place where you can drive for 14 hours and not encounter a town. In a place like this there isn’t so much a scene as a bunch of scenes. Overall, though, I think that the affluence of Western Canada has produced a type of hardcore that is more about an aesthetic than substance. Most of these kids aren’t yelling because they have something to yell about, they are yelling because of how it sounds. Maybe they’re angry for real, but it is hard to feel sympathy for anger felt by people who don’t really struggle. There’s still substance and real anger in a lot of punk from here, but it isn’t the majority. Most of the hardcore we see is fashion-based and it isn’t that interesting to me. Not that I think you can’t have a fashion band, and indeed fashion is a huge part of identifying as a punk, but when I listen to fashion rock, I want it to be pretty exotic and entertaining. I used to sing in bands that were really angry all of the time, but it didn’t feel right, because I’m not an angry person in general.

Why did you choose Martyr Index as your band name?

MV: Casey came up with it. I liked it because I’ve always been interested in the notion of an ideal that people would die for. That kind of powerful belief says something. I don’t think it is necessarily the healthiest expression of belief, but I do think that martyrdom serves to make people into an inspiration for others who struggle. We’ve caught a little bit of flak for it because of the phenomenon of suicide bombers, but that wasn’t the original notion for us. We were thinking of people like Buenaventura Durruti, the Haymarket Martyrs, and Fred Hampton.

CL: Have we caught flak for that? That’s dumb….I think you have to remember that most of humanity’s real heroes, for thousands of years, have been martyrs, both good and bad. The reason I chose the name (besides the fact that I think it sounds cool) is that Martyrdom is the ultimate expression of commitment to an ideal, again, both good and bad. Christ was a martyr, but there are people out there who consider Hitler to be a martyr, too. I think that the inherent divisiveness over what constitutes a martyr is what makes the concept interesting. Some martyrs are willing, others are not. I suppose the name is an homage to what people live and die for.

What can you say about the current socio-political events in your country?

MV: Currently Canada is in a strange situation. Right now we have a neoconservative government, very ideologically in tune with the Bush administration, in power. However, they are a minority government with no other right-wing parties in government, so they need to appeal to the centre for authorization on anything they try to pass. I like the fact that even though the Harper government is a psychotic, neoconservative party, it has to make appeals to others and negotiate to move ahead with anything.

That said, I think that the whole of North America is in a dangerous trajectory, mostly due to repercussions from US foreign policy and how closely interwoven our economies and politics are with the US. It is impossible to separate Canada from the US. We share a massive border and most of our trade flows North and South. California is much closer to us here in Western Canada than Quebec is, so that has served to integrate our economies and politics. As a result, when the US went crazy after 9/11, Canada followed suit, enacting a bunch of crazy legislation that stripped citizens of protections from the government. Canada stopped short of a lot of the more draconian shit that became policy in the US, but we were heavily affected by it nonetheless. Now there is momentum to move beyond the “free trade” agreements that exist between Canada, the US, and Mexico (NAFTA) and create a common political entity, much like the EU, based around “security.” The whole security issue is a fraud though. It is a push for American manifest destiny. No agreement drafted with the US ever benefits the other country, it is always to the benefit of US interests, mostly corporate. So, as the US becomes a more hierarchical country and people are scared into handing over their rights without a fight, it is sucking Canada along with it. Further, once the US economy collapses, Canada will be sucked into their bullshit, because of the integration of economies and politics. As a result, I am of the mindset that US politics are not just for Americans, they are of vital importance to Canadians. The same holds true everywhere else, especially Iraq. I’m sure that the same can be said of the Philippines. The US is the pre-eminent empire in the world and as a result, every other country is attached to them in one way or another. It just so happens that Canada is attached to the US with an imaginary line we call a border.

There are a lot of anarcho peace punk groups here in our country, what is your message to them?

MV: Stay strong and keep working. Build your culture, because it will be the most valuable thing in the world one day. The world is being over-run by people without any belief in the shared humanity of our species and we need people who are rational and sane to build effective infrastructure to counter that.

CL: I agree with Mark on that…it can be easy to feel disheartened and disenfranchised with the apparent lack of change and progress in the world around you, but even a small contribution can help to turn the tide. Even just writing a song or a poem, writing a zine, talking to people, raising your kids to think for themselves….all of those things help. Remember that if you won’t do it, who will?

Do you believe in revolution?

MV: Yes. I think that it would be absurd not to. I think, however, that we need to reconsider the notion of revolution, because I don’t believe in a grand revolution that overturns everything and fixes all our problems. I think there are two types of revolution and they are both necessary, but they are very different in character. The first one is a slow, organic process that leads to enormous changes in the way we interact and see the world. The other is more immediate, with people rising up and overthrowing a system that has been repressing change. The two are obviously tied together, but I don’t think that they are inclusive. The first form, the uber-revolution, is one that would probably require numerous smaller revolutions taking place within its spheres of influence. For example, the move away from feudal systems throughout Europe was marked not only by numerous revolts, but also millions of other efforts to creatively undermine, re-make, and change the system in power. It wasn’t a simple matter of building for a single moment of revolution and casting off the shackles of the old system, even though that’s how the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks imagined their efforts. The truth was that the system had to be undermined systemically, with the way people envision their role in society completely changed.

The structure of power isn’t just hierarchical, it is something that is sustained throughout all of society. That’s why changing the structure of the state or the economy without changing the discourses throughout a society never seems to produce a lasting revolution. It is also why revolutionaries who believe in a Jacobin-style revolution mistake that when a revolution does occur, that it was their efforts alone that brought about the revolution, that they are the legitimate vanguards of the revolution. That’s what happened in the Cuban revolution. Castro and Guevara believed that the revolution was brought about with them leading the charge, but the truth is that the revolution was a long process which included the input of people who had participated in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939. So when Che Guevara failed at every other revolutionary endeavour he partook in, he was surprised. You can see the despair in his Bolivian journal. The reason why the Cuban revolution was possible had little to do with the small band of guerillas in the mountains and more to do with the preparedness of Cuban society in general. The guerillas just represented an outburst of nationalist and socialist sentiment that provided enough of a catalyst to overthrow the Batista government. So what we call the Cuban revolution is actually just a moment of a more important revolutionary force. In fact, I think that to a certain extent, the misreading of the Cuban revolution has led to forces of repression that have generally worked to arrest the progress of the revolution. The US blockade has done the most damage, but the Cuban regime has repressed the arts and freedom of expression, as well as homosexuality, which in the long run may leave Cuba with little meaningful cultural change. It might become easy to cast off socialism if there’s no grassroots cultural maintenance of the ideals.

So there’s a more meaningful type of revolution that I do think has the potential to remake the order of the world, but the revolutionaries of the moment can’t be trusted to work towards that. Once someone seizes power, they will usually move to secure their power and ossify the revolution. In the log run, it just means that revolutionary progress requires numerous progressions, including overthrowing governments, but we should remain sceptical about what we fight for. We need to keep in mind the words of the Who: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

CL: I believe that all existence is defined by cycles. The very word “revolution” is in direct reference to this. So yes, I believe in revolution. But more than revolution, I believe in the power of true CHANGE. The problem with “revolution” as a concept is that humanity has a tendency to repeat the same mistakes when the wheel comes ’round again. We have to learn to pay more than just lip service to the mistakes of the past. We need to learn, so that when revolution DOES happen, we’re prepared to clean the mud off the wheel, if you’ll forgive the ham-handed metaphor. And that is where I believe change comes into the picture. Remember, a revolving door goes through revolutions, but doesn’t go anywhere at all….

If you have one song to dedicate to all human race what would it be? why this song?

MV: Ha ha. How about “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who? We could cover that. I don’t think any of my songs are good enough to dedicate to the whole human race, but I’m hoping to write a song like that some day. If I do, I’ll let you know.

CL: Um, that’s a good question. I would say “Freewill” by Rush. That answer will be soundly rejected by the entire band, though, because they hate Rush, haha.

JFLB: Probably “Can’t Stop” by the Chili Peppers. I want that shit played at my funeral, yo.

I’ve decided to reach out to all of the members of our local punk/hardcore community( TARLAC ) by creating this DIY zine made out of paper and some materials, since our town is a poor town and not most of us have access in the internet which would mean they can’t discover or dig such great bands like yours, what would be your message to all members of the philippine punk/hardcore community?

MV: I don’t know if I have a message for the community there. I think maybe we need to learn from you. You guys are so inspiring. The energy and the passion that the kids have in the Philippines is inspiring. I hope that some day people here can get to see some of your bands and share part of your scene. I also hope that we can play there to meet the people we’ve been in contact with over the years and to see your infoshops and projects in real life. If the Philippines has a chance to destroy its brutal class system and foreign domination of the economy, I believe that the people who are part of the punk rock community will be a part of that.

CL: Before we started corresponding with people in the Philippines, I had no idea how dedicated the independent music and politics community was there. I guess I had never really thought about it, because here in Canada we have the luxury of taking our music and our culture for granted. It makes me feel a little ashamed to think of how much resistance and persecution the young punks have to face elsewhere in the world when it comes to expressing themselves and trying to fight for change. Places like the Philippines, and Burma, and Israel, and Iraq….I’m with Mark, I admire the amount of commitment you guys have to those ideals of free expression, socio-economic responsibility, and revolutionary attitudes. Much respect.

JFLB: I’ve got to agree with Marek and Casey on this one. We are so privileged in North America in terms of our resources for communication and change that I think we often forget how lucky we are and don’t take advantage of them. So to communicate with people who are working together with such dedication is so inspirational. It’s an important reminder that change is possible, in large part because of the dedication of people like you – putting this zine out, informing the community you live in, and staying strong and hopeful.

Any last words?

MV: Keep on struggling!

CL: Amen to that.

FREE MUSIC to Help Free the Music!

We’ve just posted a new song, “A Word and a Beat”, on our page on myspace, our page on facebook, and on iLike. This song, from our forthcoming album, Molotov Rocktail, is a celebration of underground independent music. Independent music has always survived the various economic and technological transformations that have upset music capitalism and today is no different. Today, the executives steering the bloated entertainment industries are terrified of the possibility of people hearing music without paying for it. The industry is attempting to force through legislation to engineer profitability into art and stop its mass proliferation. However, this is nothing but a false barrier between artists and listeners. Music is written to be heard. Everything else is peripheral, but the music industry has been treating it in the exact opposite manner for too long. So, let’s take our music back!

In honour of the vitality of art and the people who aren’t afraid to share their culture freely with others, we are going to be releasing our new album, Molotov Rocktail, for free on the internet in conjunction with Meter Records. Keep visiting our website in April to download the album. And make sure you share it with others.

Viva rock n roll!
The Martyr Index

For more information and to offer support to Byron, please visit his website at www.osoblanco.org.

To continue Oso Blanco’s mission and support children in Chiapas, visit the site of Schools For Chiapas

“Oso Blanco” is a track featured on our forthcoming album, Molotov Rocktail, on Meter Records. Look for it in April. It’ll be available free online or for sale on CD and Vinyl.

We’re going to be posting more songs from our forthcoming Album, Molotov Rocktail, until it drops in April, so keep checking back to hear more.

The Martyr Index on myspace
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Jenny, Mark, Ian, Casey and Jimmy