COP ON FIRE / COMBAT WOMBAT - split CD / LP COP ON FIRE : punk dub de Belgique (avec des membres de Usual Suspects) COMBAT WOMBAT : rap anarchiste Australien   PRESS RELEASE COP ON FIRE - COMBAT WOMBAT SPLIT ALBUM Having soundchecked on the barricades for social and ecological justice for many years, now comes a joint effort from Australian hiphop-dub-drum’n’bass warriors Combat Wombat and Belgium’s purveyors of police-unfriendly dub/ska, Cop On Fire. 11 tracks of unruly statements released by the international DIY conspiracy. The CD also contains a ROM part with direct action manuals and how-to’s on self-sufficiency and DIY. COMBAT WOMBAT Armed with only samplers, mics and turntables, powered by solar energy and an uncompromising belief in Truth over Spin, these desert nomads delve into issues of national identity, the government’s treatment of refugees, creative resistance and alternative energy with a sense of urgency that is balanced by their ability to turn words into action. They’ve traveled and toured Australia constantly, lending their expertise to a wide range of causes; working with traditional owners in the Western Desert to oppose uranium mining on Aboriginal land; providing sound systems for Reclaim the Streets parties and blockades across the country; running workshops in isolated desert communities in Central Australia; assisting with the setup of the Warumpi Studio in Papunya, Central Australia; and showing farmers how to convert their vehicles to vegetable oil. COP ON FIRE are a quartet raised on dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike, with a heart for todays activist movement, reclaiming the streets, opening autonomous social centres, dedicated to antifascism, sustainable living,... Oh, and they don’t like cops. Raging sub-bass-dub and riotous ska is what you get. DIY has been more than a label to the band as they've played just about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related pubs. This has meant putting up their own stage to play an activist camp, squatting their own venues, fixing the band’s van on the road (not seldom with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit the samples out of a supermarket's wastebin,... But check out the tunes and make up your own mind. BIO COP ON FIRE Born out of Leuven-Belgium’s activist squatting scene in 2004, Cop On Fire have been putting up festive foundations of pumping drums and sub-bass dub supporting their local scene. Local in this case is as global as a good part of Europe as C.O.F. toured between Scotland and Slovakia, though never playing Kortessem. Consisting of 4 people who have a heart for dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike, C.O.F. uses these influences to recreate feelings from daily life: sticking it to The Man, taking a stand for Mother Earth, opening the bin for bigoted morality and xenophobia of all kinds…Oh, and we don’t like cops. Reclaim The Streets, opening autonomous social centres, Antifascist Action, sustainable living, … action backed up by the flow of drum and bass, a guitar crossing musical boundaries all thrown in a mix of effects and echoes from the underbelly of society – the samples. DIY has been more than a label to the band as we've played just about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related pubs. This has meant putting up our own stage to play an activist camp, squatting our own venues, fixing our own van on the road (not seldom with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit our samples out of a supermarket's wastebin,... DIY does not trap us within borders of a certain scene, so we gladly play different places as long as our performance doesn't get any capital flowing towards any of the assholes or companies trying to make a miserable life for the less privileged. We don't care about music contests and shit alike, we don't care to mention what bands we've played with, as all that is superficial and irrelevant to what this band is about - even though we liked most bands we've played with a lot. Naming names though, we've been influenced by bands as diverse as Skatalites, Killing joke, Mad professor, Conflict, The Clash, Amebix, Radical dance faction, Immortal technique, … COF released a first cd-ep “Welcome To The Free Zone” march 2008, have changed drummers for the third and so they believe last time and have released a split album in sep 2010 with australian activist hiphopband combat wombat. http://www.myspace.com/coponfireearth or coponfiredub@yahoo.com BIO COMBAT WOMBAT The band's name came about because they used to drive around in a camouflage painted van that looked like a giant wombat. ...one day whilst we were touring around the desert with our solar powered sound system (Labrats) my mate Rufus said why don't you call your band Combat Wombat... so we did. —Monkey Marc Monkey Marc met Izzy in Darwin in 1998 where they started up a solar powered party political sound system. She had this whole solar-powered sound system that she had hooked-up to this old quad-bike, a four-wheeled pedal bicycle. It was basically pedal and solar-powered. I arrived with my decks and my mixer, a sampler and an 808 drum machine, and that was kind of the start of Lab Rats and Combat Wombat —Monkey Marc Elf joined the band in 2000 after they all met whilst living together in a squat in the heart of Sydney. The squat lasted two-and-a-half years. It was the venue of many benefit parties for the forests, land rights and Lake Cowal. It had alternative movie nights, dumpster picnics and many thriving underground and grass-roots gatherings —MC Izzy We had this warehouse out the back that became known as the Pigeon Poo Palace, and that's where we started jamming with Elf Tranzporter. We were doing heaps of free parties and Reclaim The Streets parties at the time. So he'd just rock up and start doing some rhymes, and we just started up this friendship —Monky Marc DJ Wasabi joined the band in 2002. Their first real performance as Combat Wombat was on a Channel Seven music programme Of course, it was heavily censored. The song was about four-and-a-half minutes long, but by the time Channel Seven got hold of it and cut up the footage of us performing live, they chopped it down to about a minute-and-a-half. They'd taken everything out of it, you know, there were lines about Nike exploitation of workers, Shell drilling hell and none of that was in there. But they left in the stuff about cops selling smack and stuff). It seemed fairly obvious who the program sponsors were. —Monkey Marc This led to the release of the band's debut album, Labrats Solar Powered Sound System, and their subsequent signing to Elefant Traks. The band released its second album, Unsound $ystem, in March, 2005. Unsound $ystem features a number of guests artists such as The Herd's Ozi Batla and TZU's Seed MC, but the most confronting cameos are from MCG and SMS: two Afghan refugees who had escaped from Woomera detention centre. http://www.myspace.com/combatwombatforpresident or monkeymarc@hotmail.com