Friendly Fa$cism (1991)

Consolidated was a two-man-plus-parts consortium, a white hip-hop act headed up by Adam Sherburne and Mark Pistel out of the Bay Area in the late '80s and early '90s. They conducted open-microphone message confrontation exercises in performance. They also wrote a bunch of good songs, preaching and all, and made a few great albums or parts of albums. Their messages tend toward eco-friendly warnings with a harsh edge of impatience for stupidity, focusing often on the political and economic arguments for veganism and animal rights. Friendly Fa$cism came to my attention when it was new, and I liked the follow-up album Play More Music almost as much. The in-your-face confrontation style, along with Consolidated's surprising musicality in the melodies, beats, and production and a general air of futile self-deprecating arrogance, often remind me of Frank Zappa. The album has hilarious episodes, as audience members at the live shows get the microphone to share views and make a lot of choice comments. Sometimes they nail Consolidated for various hypocrisies and stupidities of their own, but more often they are richly making fools of themselves. One woman attempts to quote the Bible at them, saying, "The Lord God said thou shalt have dominion over the animals of the earth, he didn't say say thou shalt have dominion over a big wad of tofu." Sherburne (or maybe Pistel?) comes back, "He also said the men shall have dominion over the women, so do you believe that, do you buy that line too?" A distant voice in the crowd: "You're goddamn right!" Sherburne: "Thank you brother, you're on the next record already." These breaks are lively and entertaining and often what people remember most from hearing the album. But Friendly Fa$cism is just full of great stuff, and don't let the titles fool you. These are great songs: "Unity of Oppression," "Typical Male," "The Sexual Politics of Meat," "White American Male '91 (The Truth Hurts) Part 2," and "Music Has No Meaning" among others in a long, solid album. "College Radio" is a terrific, caustic sendup of alt-rock at the very dawn of its brief commercial domination. The fact that Friendly Fa$cism mostly still sounds so fresh is paradoxically the most depressing thing about it. It was a little early for climate change, in 1991, but we can see most of Consolidated's issues are relevant to that discussion, such as wantonly cutting down forests in South America to create grazing land for beef cattle. As usual, the hippies and all their heirs are right about everything, and as usual they are ignored. What was an issue of economics in 1991 is an issue of existence on this planet in 2021, but the back and forth sounds exactly the same. Still, you can dance your rage to Friendly Fa$cism and sing along, if so inclined, and it's often funny in a miserabilism kind of way. Check it out.