Rock to the polls

SOMETIMES YOU JUST wish you were at the right place at the wrong time – namely, sitting right next to the punk folks at Fat Wreck Chords, stuffing their piping hot Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 CD into mailers, and watching Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld try to yuk his way out of the Iraqi prison-abuse scandal on TV. Sounds cozy, no? It would be like watching the Oscars alongside film critics or studying Barry Bonds's swing amid the reporters in the press box. The distancing effect of the tube, or the flat screen, would melt away under the laser stares and insider involvement of your fellow viewers, who would be pleased to see their predictions unfold.

So it was nice to get a little blow-by-blow from Punk Voter cofounder and Fat Wreck Chords staffer Toby Jeg over the phone May 7. "The Democrats are asking Rumsfeld good questions, and in typical Rumsfeld fashion, he's deflecting them in an 'aw, shucks' way," said Jeg, an impressive motormouth who should consider a career in public speaking. "But now that people are shining their bombs and poised to throw them out to us, it's not going to be so fucking funny anymore."

Yet far be it from Jeg to get smug and self-satisfied about the spectacle on TV. "It's something we all knew about, but it doesn't do much to say, 'I told you so,' " he muttered.

Jeg and Fat Wreck Chords honcho and NOFX singer Mike Burkett, a.k.a. Fat Mike, have put their time, money, and toil where their outrage is. After the 2000 presidential election, they formed Punk Voter and watched it pogo into an entity that properly represents at the Iowa caucus as well as at the upper echelons of the Billboard charts. Sniff the bitter, energized wind blowing around town, and it's safe to say the 527-person group, along with Bands Against Bush and Plea for Peace, are making the Bay Area an epicenter for an ever evolving mutant necessity: the musically savvy and down-and-dirty progressive political-education organization. Blame it on our fair city's radical history, Left Coast geography, peer pressure, or would-be mayor Jello Biafra, but it's time to get your tears out of your beer, apathy aunts and crankshaftin' cynics – the breeze is up, the tide is shifting, and the worm is turning. Get active, get silk-screening, get up onstage, and call your fellow music fans to revolution.

Fat Wreck Chords and Punk Voter, for instance, are coping with more attention than they imagined possible. Between softball games against, say, Mission teachers, the label has hired a handful of new employees to fulfill online orders for Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 – thanks to exposure on MoveOn.org and affiliates, as well as Fat Mike's appearances on the Howard Stern Show and elsewhere.

Jeg proudly rattled off the stats: in the week after its April 20 release, the comp landed on the Billboard 200 at no. 54, and last week it rose to no. 1 on Billboard's independent chart and no. 2 on the top Internet albums list, right below Diana Krall but higher than Prince. "We're above 'underground' bands like Hanson, 'DIY' bands like Hanson, who are on the independent charts," he said. "Apparently people hate Bush more than they like Hanson."

When Click Back America, a youth-focused MoveOn partner, highlighted the release, the label fielded 4,000 online orders in one weekend. "These were people who were offering four copies at a time and clearly supporting the cause," Jeg said. "It's good to have progressive allies out there because we're new to this and it's adding validity to a grassroots and even silly punk rock organization."

Jeg came up with the Punk Voter name, and Fat Mike threw his voice, money, and efforts behind it, culminating in the CD; an offshoot political action committee, BARF (Bush Administration Retirement Fund); Punk Voter tours; and in August, Rock Against Bush, Vol. 2, which will include tracks by MTV stars like the Foo Fighters, No Doubt, and Green Day.

Still, despite the big-time alliances, MTV refused to air the Punk Voter CD commercial, Jeg said. "MTV refused to play it because they said it was a political commercial, and they told us to check back in two weeks and they were going to have a policy," he intoned. "They're just being assholes. The fact of the matter is MTV is a propaganda machine, especially during this whole Iraq war. We're a partisan group – we are leftist. Rock the Vote, a lot of good that does – just getting people to vote. It's probably some sort of tax break."

My sneaking sentiments exactly. Yet Punk Voter is also officially defined as a voter-education organization – and voting is where the unified action is for local musical-political groups. Ex-Skankin' Pickle member and Asian Man Records owner Mike Park, for example, hitched his current Plea for Peace tour to Music for America. The group is tagging along to register voters at every stop, while $1 from every ticket goes to a fund for a San Jose teen center, which Park hopes to open in 2006 after he rides from California to New York City next year to raise $250,000.

In the meantime Park wants to concentrate on getting out the vote: "I think people think there are scary times ahead. Reinstatement of the draft isn't just a rumor – it's reality, and it's going to affect these young men, and perhaps it's time for them to take a look at what's going on instead of what's going on with American Idol."

But maybe that can be racked up to the agile yet uncontrollable nature of these loose coalitions. Bands Against Bush leader and Replicator guitarist and sometime Bay Guardian contributor Conan Neutron, for instance, told me his chapter has taken over national activities because the original Northwestern proponents (including former Bikini Kill drummer and Kurt Cobain ex Tobi Vail) were returning to school and the Bay Area arm was so active. An international day of action on July 31 was recently announced, as well as assorted events just before the election – and voter registration is the focus.

"We want to move to the next level, and since we were the ones pushing for that, we ended up taking over," he said. "We're a totally, ridiculously skeletal operation. It's all-volunteer work, and we have no resources. More power to Fat Mike for sinking money into this, but we're all broke."

More power to these guys – because they lack a financial foothold, and because they give me hope. When it comes to politics, I've had my world rocked so often and so hard by disappointments that it takes a lot to rouse this rabble member. Maybe politics are even ... cool again? "It's more of a question of social awareness," Neutron theorized. "Some things have gotten so messed up that certain people are starting to pay attention where they haven't before. And the choices are pretty bleak, but our organization is about enfranchising the disenfranchised. I'm seeing positive things – people have come up to me and said, 'Thanks so much for this. Now I have an outlet for all this negative energy, and it's a great thing.' I'm like, 'Me too.' "

Plea for Peace tour, with Cursive, Saul Williams, and Mike Park, runs May 24-25, 8 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. $16. (415) 885-0750.

Tip it in. E-mail Kimberly Chun.