Music Feature: “Which Side? A Protest Music Teach-out” – How Music Meets the Moment

By Clea Simon

The eighth iteration of “Which Side?” was a wild success, mixing musical genres from reggae to old-school Boston punk and punctuated by two moving (and brief) speakers.

If the point of “Which Side? A Protest Music Teach-out,” the monthly music and inspiration gatherings, is to prove that protest music exists beyond Bob Dylan, last Tuesday’s event was a bit of a failure. Of the roughly 12 songs performed by six musical groups – each scheduled to perform a cover and an original in the genre – two of the covers were of Dylan songs.

That detail aside, the eighth iteration of “Which Side?,” held Feb. 17 at the Burren in Somerville (as were the last five of these events), was a wild success, mixing musical genres from reggae to old-school Boston punk and punctuated by two moving (and brief) speakers.

“Which Side” began early last year, when longtime activist and local arts maven Joyce Linehan approached frequent Boston Globe contributor James G. Sullivan about using his 2019 book, Which Side Are You On? 20^th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs, as the basis for a concert or two. The result was launched in July at Cambridge’s Lizard Lounge with Jon Butcher, Joe Gittleman, Tom Jordan, Jesse Ahern, Robin Lane playing with Adam Sherman, and Jen Trynin. It has since gained momentum, with local artists such as Dave Herlihy, Thalia Zedek, Sarah Borges, and the Cavedogs, and visitors including Wesley Stace and Victoria Cardona, taking the stage in what has now become a regular series that routinely sells out. (Unclaimed tickets are made available at the door. See the website for details.)

“I wanted to explore the idea of what a protest song is,” explained Sullivan on Tuesday. That inquiry matched up with Linehan’s community activism, specifically the question of “how music meets the moment.” The reaction has been explosive, with coverage at both WGBH and WBUR and beyond, and with Sullivan becoming a go-to commentator on protest music for such publications as the Wall Street Journal and, more recently, The Hill.

As a demonstration of the series’ range, Tuesday’s event opened with the dub reggae of the Flying Vipers, covering “Demonstration.” Originally recorded in 1970 by Kenneth “Junior” Byles (a Bob Marley and Lee “Scratch” Perry collaborator), the song was a departure from the series’ usual rock and singer-songwriter fare, but a natural fit for the seven-piece group, with vocalist Kellee “Lady K” Webb’s rich soprano ably filling in for Byles’s laid-back vocals before the band broke into their own “Jackals.”

As Sullivan and Linehan pointed out in their introductions, coordinating these events involves keeping a lot of balls in the air. Therefore, when previously announced performer (and former Scruffy the Cat guitarist) Stephen Fredette dropped out due to an injury, guitarist/singer Eric Salt – a member of the house band, the Paid Protesters, stepped up as a solo act. Performing a killer “Oxford Town,” the first of the night’s Dylan covers, before his own “Firing Line,” he turned the Dylan rarity, a scathing sundown-town condemnation, plaintive and furious in turns. (Salt was at first accompanied by fiddler Stud Green and accordionist Elizabeth Steen, and then the rest of the Paid Protesters – a crack group of local notables led by bassist Ed Valauskas, with guitarist/keyboardist/singer Anthony Kaczynski, drummer Paul Buckley, keyboardist/singer Magen Tracy, and guitarist/singer Mike Oram.)

“The live music community, by nature, are community organizers,” concluded Salt, quoting one of Linehan’s maxims.

Jim Infantino, a Boston veteran most notably from Jim’s Big Ego, followed next, with a cover of They Might Be Giants’ stinging “Your Racist Friend.” His original, “I Will Not Be Silent,” sparked the first of several singalongs, drawing a surprisingly robust response from an audience largely composed of older, punk-era music fans.

That response is a large part of the reason for these events, explained Linehan. “Hope is not a discipline,” she said from the stage, paraphrasing educator Mariame Kaba. “Hope is an active daily practice.”

Dwayne Haggins’s set began with the singer/guitarist recalling a turbulent youth in sober houses, where his mother was dealing with substance abuse issues. This history infused his crystalline tenor in the second Dylan cover of the night, a stunning “Gates of Eden,” performed solo, which segued into his own powerful “Run and Cheer.”

One propelling idea of the series is that, as Sullivan has said, many songs can be protest songs in the right context. Dennis Brennan’s mournful “Iodine in the Wine” illustrated the flip side of this belief in the next set. Written more than two decades ago, the singer-songwriter explained, over the years it has been read many ways, such as a lament for a lost love. “It was always about immigration,” said Brennan, who also performed a searing cover of Buffy Sainte Marie’s “Welcome Welcome Emigranté.”

Founded 45 years ago, old-school Boston garage band/punks the Dogmatics stretched the format somewhat as the final act, pushing several songs into a medley of sorts (including their own “With a Scarlet Letter”) that centered around a full-throated cover of “Eve of Destruction.” The highlight of the garage band’s set may have been reached when singer/guitarist Peter O’Halloran launched into a bit of personal history. He started by explaining that, as he was growing up, every adult male around was a veteran – many of World War II. In that environs, he recalled reading war comics and, eventually, wondering how the German people had bought into National Socialism. “Now we know,” he concluded.

“We all know the difference between right from wrong, so act accordingly,” he continued as the band launched into a delightfully rousing “Nein, Nein, Nein,” a new, as-yet-unrecorded original.

The series also hosts speakers in its 90-minute format. In light of Black History Month, Emmett G. Price III, the founding dean of Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music, took the stage following the Dogmatics to weave together the themes of Black history, protest, and music. Explaining the roots of the commemorative month in post-Emancipation celebrations of the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12) and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14), he then led a singalong of “This Little Light of Mine.”

More moving still was the brief Q&A between Linehan and Patrick Wilson, before Haggins’s short set. A mover of Occupy Boston, Wilson spoke about his period of being unhoused for approximately 14 months. Describing the vulnerability of the unhoused, exemplified by having the bag containing his phone and dentures carted away as trash, he said, “you lose everything out there.” With Linehan’s encouragement, he then entreated attendees to give the unhoused a hug or at least eye contact as recognition of our shared humanity.

“Love conquers hate,” he concluded. With that, the music continued, the message embedded within.

The next iteration of “Which Side?” will be held March 24, 8 p.m. at the Burren. That event is already officially sold out. However, some tickets will be available at the door. For more information about ticket availability, the series, Sullivan’s book, or tips for hosting a similar series elsewhere, see WhichSide.org.

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Clea Simon is a Somerville resident and former music critic whose latest novel is The Cat’s Eye Charm (Level Best Books).