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Journalism of Courage
Son of celebrated writers, singer Max Bernstein’s songs are like rock opinion pieces
Last year, Max Bernstein’s pop-rock band, The Actual, released an album, joined the Warped Tour and performed with super group Velvet Revolver. Bernstein celebrated his most notable year in the music industry by breaking up the band and stage-diving into the broadside business.
His latest proffer is political protest songs—blunt musical statements about the Bush administration, abortion rights, Sen John McCain’s position on Iraq, the media, civil liberties. They’re something like punk-rock op-eds—perfect given that Bernstein, 28, is the son of one of the most famous figures in journalism, former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story with Bob Woodward. His mother, author-screenwriter-director Nora Ephron, isn’t exactly a footnote herself.
“It’s absolutely like writing an opinion column—a liberal one,” says the younger Bernstein, who now sings with his new band, Max and the Marginalized. Bernstein began working on this topical material in October 2007. He started with Standing in the Driveway Holding Cardboard in the Rain, a song about the death penalty. Nothing particularly notable there (lefty musician sings lefty protest anthem!), but Max and the Marginalized were just getting warmed up, with much more indignation to come.
Updating the protest-song form for the Internet age, the trio (singer-guitarist Bernstein, Dave Watrous on bass, Jon Ryggy on drums) has written and recorded a new diatribe every week since, posting all 43 of them on MySpace, Facebook and the Huffington Post, a liberal news and opinion website. The songs are always free—the message more important than the money, Bernstein says. “I don’t think anybody gets into the activism business trying to make money,” he says. It’s about using music as “a viable form of social and political mobilisation”.
“I’m a political junkie,” Bernstein says. His politics, distilled: several clicks left-of-centre but not exactly on the radical fringe. As per the Max and the Marginalized songs, which he writes and sings: Bush is brutally bad, but McCain might be Worse Where It Counts—as commander in chief. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a disappointment, but not as much as Sen Joe Lieberman, leader of what Bernstein calls, in a song, Coalition of Turncoats.
His songs feature few heroes but many villains. Literally: when Republican right wing Sen Jesse Helms passed away, Bernstein’s response was It’s Awkward When Bad People Die.
-J. Freedom du Lac (LATWP)
