Brian Mumform and Dana Dart-Mclean founded this project in early 2010 to explore global US military occupation through the cultural form of the cover song. The US maintains over 700 military bases abroad in countries where we have no declaration of war. This project unites American musicians to cover songs from foreign regions where these bases are located. As audience members, participants, and singers, we can chose our level of involvement and implication in a larger structure. Our challenge as Americans is to do the painful work of self-knowing, realizing the power imbalance in the world that enables our ways of living and looking at how this imbalance is enforced by a vast military-industrial complex. At the potential end of the world, it serves no one.
More info at Occupation/Preoccupation
Many collaborators have improved and realized the project by covering songs, discussing politics, and researching or translating music. The project was included in the Open Engagement Conference at Portland State University in 2011 and in "Evidence of Bricks," curated by Kristan Kennedy for PICA's TBA Festival. in 2011. Recently, Brian's cover of a Bahraini song by Saleh Al-Durazi, recommended by Bahraini activist Zainab Alkhawaja, was featured in the Portland Mercury End Hits.
Pro-democracy activists in Bahrain face violent repression, while the US 5th Naval Fleet harbors there and the US supports the constitutional monarchy in power.
Danny Sasaki performs a drum piece by Korean composer, Kim Duk Soo, at the TBA festival.
