Steve Wallis
2005-10-10 18:19:28 UTC
I've included below the contents of my band Galaxia's home page (at
www.galaxiamusic.org):
You can now download Galaxia tracks from this website. Click here for
details.
Hi!
My name is Steve Wallis, a revolutionary socialist mainly living in
Manchester, England, but also a member of the Scottish Socialist Party
in Glasgow.
I had been planning to set up a socialist band, which I hope will play
a leading role in the world socialist revolution, for a couple of years
or so, because it is possible to influence people greatly through music
and I have acquired sufficiently strong singing abilities through
karaoke to convince myself that I would be capable of singing in a
band.
I decided to name the band "Galaxia" after the very left-wing
future of the galaxy at the end of Isaac Asimov's epic Foundation
series, voted the most influential science fiction series of all-time.
[The original trilogy had a right-wing plot to get past the censors in
the 1950s, so read the last two novels Foundation's Edge and
Foundation and Earth for the left-wing ending.]
My first attempt at songwriting was a combination of snippets from
existing songs, original lyrics and speeches (some of which were quite
long), which I called The Revolution Starts Now!, inspired by the Steve
Earle & the Dukes song and album entitled The Revolution Starts...Now.
I originally intended it as a B-side for our first single (which I
wanted to be a cover version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody).
However, I came up with an initiative for a worldwide general strike at
the time of the G8 summit (in Gleneagles, Scotland, during the first
week in July), which I publicised via the internet and by handing out
copies of a leaflet (which you can read by clicking here). I predicted
that the G8 summit would be the time when the world socialist
revolution starts, so it became urgent to rewrite that song and release
it on the internet (and on the odd CD), in time for the events around
the G8 summit, to make my initiative more successful than it otherwise
would be. You can read the lyrics of The Revolution Starts Now! as
recorded in June by clicking here, or as improved in September (to
include some minor corrections to the politics) by clicking here. [The
latter lyrics page includes full names of people referred to in the
song, in brackets.] Unfortunately, serious general strikes (which could
have led to a revolution) did not take off anywhere in the world at the
time of this G8 summit. This was probably mainly because my call
wasn't backed up by any sizeable organisation (although School
Students Against War were trying to get school students to strike in
Scotland). This lack of action could also have been influenced by the
violence that occurred at the Carnival for Full Enjoyment on Monday the
4th of July in Edinburgh and/or the terrorist attacks on Thursday the
7th of July in London. In my opinion, both violent events were
instigated by people on the side of big business (whether in the police
force, agent provocateurs among the Edinburgh protesters or terrorists)
to divert the world's attention at such an important time from doing
something constructive to defeat the G8. Nevertheless, in my opinion, a
G8 summit is the best opportunity for coordinated action around the
world to try to overthrow big business, and (with far more time to
organise) I am setting my sights on the 2006 summit in St Petersburg in
Russia. I would like Galaxia to record improved and updated versions of
the songs, as well as others, in time for that summit, and also have a
world tour in advance of the summit, to publicise the call for a
worldwide general strike.
I have a portable karaoke machine and had quite a lot of CD-Gs (CDs
with graphics for display on its screen) until most of them disappeared
recently, and I experimented with varying the lyrics while singing
along to Do They Know It's Christmas? on the 14th of June. I then
modified lyrics to (the Band Aid 20 version of) the song which I
downloaded from the internet, in order to come up with my first version
of Do They Know It's G8 Time? I distributed some photocopies in the
Hulme and Moss Side areas of Manchester, and was such a threat to the
state that the police arrested me outside Moss Side Leisure Centre!
I made some improvements to the lyrics of Do They Know It's G8 Time?
and distributed copies, encouraging others to make photocopies and
distribute them themselves (especially during G8 events, and at
airports to publicise the messages in the song and Galaxia itself
around the world) - the lyrics can be downloaded and distributed by
printing out the Microsoft Word file accessible here, or read on the
internet by clicking here. I have subsequently updated the lyrics, to
improve the politics in the song, at the cost of differing much more
from Do They Know It's Christmas? I sung the new version live at the
Earth First! Gathering in August; they can be read on-line by clicking
here and an explanation for the changes can be read by clicking here.
As well as those two tracks, I performed a version of the international
song of the working class: The Internationale. I changed the lyrics and
come up with (what I think is) a better tune; because my version uses
the final line in French I call it L'internaçionale. You can find the
lyrics by clicking here, or some improved (extended) lyrics by clicking
here.
I put out a call far and wide on the internet for anybody who wanted to
participate in Galaxia, either as a full band member or as a guest
participant in one or more of our songs, to turn up to a recording
studio (the Cutting Rooms, Abraham Moss Centre, City College,
Manchester) on Thursday the 30th of June 2005. This was an extremely
unorthodox way of getting a band together, and unsurprisingly nobody
turned up. However, I already knew that a very good guitarist (called
Adam) who works there could help out with the recordings, and he
accompanied me on an acoustic guitar when we recorded two of the
tracks. Adam told me that he does not want to be part of Galaxia in the
future, so I am still looking for band members. Anyone who wishes to
participate can of course contact me (by phoning 07739 904924 or
emailing me at ***@fsmail.net), but I will probably recruit
most band members face-to-face, and the band may just comprise the
first serious love of my life (Rhiannon Williams) and myself, in the
short term at least.
The main way in which we will distribute our music will be via the
internet, and all our tracks will be downloadable free of charge as
soon as possible after recording them. I have put the recordings made
at the Cutting Rooms on the downloads page of this website.
I was locked up as a political prisoner on the 1st of July, preventing
me from putting the tracks on this website until after the G8 summit. I
did something even more useful when I escaped - putting improved
lyrics for Do They Know It's G8 Time? on discussion groups,
correcting the odd minor mistake and clarifying certain things. An
explanation for those improvements, plus the later changes I made when
performing the song at the Earth First! Gathering, is provided here.
There was not time before this G8 summit (from the 6th to the 8th of
July) to produce a large number of CDs before the G8 summit, but in
future I would like us to try to get some on sale in shops. Due to the
respective politics of the band and shop owners, it would be naïve to
expect many shops (especially when they are part of chain stores) to
stock Galaxia CDs, but we could investigate getting them into FOPP,
Music Zone and Borders (mainly a bookstore but one that commonly stocks
left-wing merchandise) . HMV is a particularly right-wing chain, but it
may be possible to get our CDs stocked in Virgin Megastores and
WHSmiths.
All our tracks, and the lyrics of our own songs, are and will continue
to be copyleft - as defined by the GNU Free Software Foundation -
encouraging not-for-profit duplication but forbidding it for commercial
purposes, and the covers of our CDs will indicate that the tracks can
be downloaded from this website for free.
We will establish the Galaxia Foundation for the World Socialist
Revolution, and all the proceeds of CD sales, T-shirt sales, gigs
(except for those that are benefits for particular organisations),
etc., except for expenses and wages, will go to the Foundation. The
Galaxia Foundation will be composed of band members (and perhaps some
other socialists) and will democratically decide how to distribute the
money - to campaigns, socialist and autonomous organisations, and
charities (particularly those which campaign as well as alleviate some
of the problems of capitalism). The wage rate of band members will also
be decided by the Foundation - whatever wage rate we decide to pay
ourselves, our wages will be workers' wages in line with the
philosophy of Galaxia that we are in the band to help the struggle for
a better world rather than to line our own pockets. As many of you will
have noticed, the word "Foundation" is very appropriate for the
Galaxia fund, due to the origins of the band's name in Isaac
Asimov's Foundation series.
Site map:
Band members - information about people in or who I want to be in
Galaxia.
Pictures - an image gallery of band members.
Gigs - a list of gigs that we are planning.
Downloads - Galaxia tracks that can be downloaded free of charge.
Lyrics - lyrics for Galaxia songs or songs that we have performed
cover versions of.
Do They Know It's G8 Time? - on a web page or as a Word file, or as
improved at the Earth First! Gathering (with an explanation for the
improvements here).
The Revolution Starts Now! - on a web page, or as an improved web
page.
L'internaçionale - on a web page, or as an improved web page.
Discussion groups - forums on the internet on which you can discuss
Galaxia.
Galaxia Foundation - information about the Galaxia Foundation for the
World Socialist Revolution.
This website was last modified on the 5th of October 2005.
--
Steve Wallis (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk).
Urgent emails: ***@fsmail.net.
My mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism).
My revolutionary socialist band Galaxia (http://www.galaxiamusic.org;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/galaxiamusic).
Launch a general strike at the time of the G8
summit(http://www.g8summitworldwidegeneralstrike.org).
Initiator of Revolutionary Platform of Respect
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionaryplatformofrespect).
Member of Glasgow Shettleston branch of the Scottish Socialist Party
(http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org) and initiator of the
Revolutionary Platform of the SSP
(http://www.revolutionaryplatformofthessp.org).
Initiator of the Campaign for Democracy in the UK
(http://www.democracycampaign.org.uk) and Campaign for Sanity in the
NHS (http://www.health-service-sanity.org).
www.galaxiamusic.org):
You can now download Galaxia tracks from this website. Click here for
details.
Hi!
My name is Steve Wallis, a revolutionary socialist mainly living in
Manchester, England, but also a member of the Scottish Socialist Party
in Glasgow.
I had been planning to set up a socialist band, which I hope will play
a leading role in the world socialist revolution, for a couple of years
or so, because it is possible to influence people greatly through music
and I have acquired sufficiently strong singing abilities through
karaoke to convince myself that I would be capable of singing in a
band.
I decided to name the band "Galaxia" after the very left-wing
future of the galaxy at the end of Isaac Asimov's epic Foundation
series, voted the most influential science fiction series of all-time.
[The original trilogy had a right-wing plot to get past the censors in
the 1950s, so read the last two novels Foundation's Edge and
Foundation and Earth for the left-wing ending.]
My first attempt at songwriting was a combination of snippets from
existing songs, original lyrics and speeches (some of which were quite
long), which I called The Revolution Starts Now!, inspired by the Steve
Earle & the Dukes song and album entitled The Revolution Starts...Now.
I originally intended it as a B-side for our first single (which I
wanted to be a cover version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody).
However, I came up with an initiative for a worldwide general strike at
the time of the G8 summit (in Gleneagles, Scotland, during the first
week in July), which I publicised via the internet and by handing out
copies of a leaflet (which you can read by clicking here). I predicted
that the G8 summit would be the time when the world socialist
revolution starts, so it became urgent to rewrite that song and release
it on the internet (and on the odd CD), in time for the events around
the G8 summit, to make my initiative more successful than it otherwise
would be. You can read the lyrics of The Revolution Starts Now! as
recorded in June by clicking here, or as improved in September (to
include some minor corrections to the politics) by clicking here. [The
latter lyrics page includes full names of people referred to in the
song, in brackets.] Unfortunately, serious general strikes (which could
have led to a revolution) did not take off anywhere in the world at the
time of this G8 summit. This was probably mainly because my call
wasn't backed up by any sizeable organisation (although School
Students Against War were trying to get school students to strike in
Scotland). This lack of action could also have been influenced by the
violence that occurred at the Carnival for Full Enjoyment on Monday the
4th of July in Edinburgh and/or the terrorist attacks on Thursday the
7th of July in London. In my opinion, both violent events were
instigated by people on the side of big business (whether in the police
force, agent provocateurs among the Edinburgh protesters or terrorists)
to divert the world's attention at such an important time from doing
something constructive to defeat the G8. Nevertheless, in my opinion, a
G8 summit is the best opportunity for coordinated action around the
world to try to overthrow big business, and (with far more time to
organise) I am setting my sights on the 2006 summit in St Petersburg in
Russia. I would like Galaxia to record improved and updated versions of
the songs, as well as others, in time for that summit, and also have a
world tour in advance of the summit, to publicise the call for a
worldwide general strike.
I have a portable karaoke machine and had quite a lot of CD-Gs (CDs
with graphics for display on its screen) until most of them disappeared
recently, and I experimented with varying the lyrics while singing
along to Do They Know It's Christmas? on the 14th of June. I then
modified lyrics to (the Band Aid 20 version of) the song which I
downloaded from the internet, in order to come up with my first version
of Do They Know It's G8 Time? I distributed some photocopies in the
Hulme and Moss Side areas of Manchester, and was such a threat to the
state that the police arrested me outside Moss Side Leisure Centre!
I made some improvements to the lyrics of Do They Know It's G8 Time?
and distributed copies, encouraging others to make photocopies and
distribute them themselves (especially during G8 events, and at
airports to publicise the messages in the song and Galaxia itself
around the world) - the lyrics can be downloaded and distributed by
printing out the Microsoft Word file accessible here, or read on the
internet by clicking here. I have subsequently updated the lyrics, to
improve the politics in the song, at the cost of differing much more
from Do They Know It's Christmas? I sung the new version live at the
Earth First! Gathering in August; they can be read on-line by clicking
here and an explanation for the changes can be read by clicking here.
As well as those two tracks, I performed a version of the international
song of the working class: The Internationale. I changed the lyrics and
come up with (what I think is) a better tune; because my version uses
the final line in French I call it L'internaçionale. You can find the
lyrics by clicking here, or some improved (extended) lyrics by clicking
here.
I put out a call far and wide on the internet for anybody who wanted to
participate in Galaxia, either as a full band member or as a guest
participant in one or more of our songs, to turn up to a recording
studio (the Cutting Rooms, Abraham Moss Centre, City College,
Manchester) on Thursday the 30th of June 2005. This was an extremely
unorthodox way of getting a band together, and unsurprisingly nobody
turned up. However, I already knew that a very good guitarist (called
Adam) who works there could help out with the recordings, and he
accompanied me on an acoustic guitar when we recorded two of the
tracks. Adam told me that he does not want to be part of Galaxia in the
future, so I am still looking for band members. Anyone who wishes to
participate can of course contact me (by phoning 07739 904924 or
emailing me at ***@fsmail.net), but I will probably recruit
most band members face-to-face, and the band may just comprise the
first serious love of my life (Rhiannon Williams) and myself, in the
short term at least.
The main way in which we will distribute our music will be via the
internet, and all our tracks will be downloadable free of charge as
soon as possible after recording them. I have put the recordings made
at the Cutting Rooms on the downloads page of this website.
I was locked up as a political prisoner on the 1st of July, preventing
me from putting the tracks on this website until after the G8 summit. I
did something even more useful when I escaped - putting improved
lyrics for Do They Know It's G8 Time? on discussion groups,
correcting the odd minor mistake and clarifying certain things. An
explanation for those improvements, plus the later changes I made when
performing the song at the Earth First! Gathering, is provided here.
There was not time before this G8 summit (from the 6th to the 8th of
July) to produce a large number of CDs before the G8 summit, but in
future I would like us to try to get some on sale in shops. Due to the
respective politics of the band and shop owners, it would be naïve to
expect many shops (especially when they are part of chain stores) to
stock Galaxia CDs, but we could investigate getting them into FOPP,
Music Zone and Borders (mainly a bookstore but one that commonly stocks
left-wing merchandise) . HMV is a particularly right-wing chain, but it
may be possible to get our CDs stocked in Virgin Megastores and
WHSmiths.
All our tracks, and the lyrics of our own songs, are and will continue
to be copyleft - as defined by the GNU Free Software Foundation -
encouraging not-for-profit duplication but forbidding it for commercial
purposes, and the covers of our CDs will indicate that the tracks can
be downloaded from this website for free.
We will establish the Galaxia Foundation for the World Socialist
Revolution, and all the proceeds of CD sales, T-shirt sales, gigs
(except for those that are benefits for particular organisations),
etc., except for expenses and wages, will go to the Foundation. The
Galaxia Foundation will be composed of band members (and perhaps some
other socialists) and will democratically decide how to distribute the
money - to campaigns, socialist and autonomous organisations, and
charities (particularly those which campaign as well as alleviate some
of the problems of capitalism). The wage rate of band members will also
be decided by the Foundation - whatever wage rate we decide to pay
ourselves, our wages will be workers' wages in line with the
philosophy of Galaxia that we are in the band to help the struggle for
a better world rather than to line our own pockets. As many of you will
have noticed, the word "Foundation" is very appropriate for the
Galaxia fund, due to the origins of the band's name in Isaac
Asimov's Foundation series.
Site map:
Band members - information about people in or who I want to be in
Galaxia.
Pictures - an image gallery of band members.
Gigs - a list of gigs that we are planning.
Downloads - Galaxia tracks that can be downloaded free of charge.
Lyrics - lyrics for Galaxia songs or songs that we have performed
cover versions of.
Do They Know It's G8 Time? - on a web page or as a Word file, or as
improved at the Earth First! Gathering (with an explanation for the
improvements here).
The Revolution Starts Now! - on a web page, or as an improved web
page.
L'internaçionale - on a web page, or as an improved web page.
Discussion groups - forums on the internet on which you can discuss
Galaxia.
Galaxia Foundation - information about the Galaxia Foundation for the
World Socialist Revolution.
This website was last modified on the 5th of October 2005.
--
Steve Wallis (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk).
Urgent emails: ***@fsmail.net.
My mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism).
My revolutionary socialist band Galaxia (http://www.galaxiamusic.org;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/galaxiamusic).
Launch a general strike at the time of the G8
summit(http://www.g8summitworldwidegeneralstrike.org).
Initiator of Revolutionary Platform of Respect
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionaryplatformofrespect).
Member of Glasgow Shettleston branch of the Scottish Socialist Party
(http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org) and initiator of the
Revolutionary Platform of the SSP
(http://www.revolutionaryplatformofthessp.org).
Initiator of the Campaign for Democracy in the UK
(http://www.democracycampaign.org.uk) and Campaign for Sanity in the
NHS (http://www.health-service-sanity.org).