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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Members of Kruhm (L-R, Chris Hersha, David Dow
and Matt Horne) want to help educate young people
about the evils of sweatshops. The recent Wyoming
High School grads have organized a benefit concert
Friday to support a national anti-sweatshop
organization.
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"Sorry, the space is cramped," says Chris Hersha, referring to the makeshift sound stage for his band Kruhm that's actually his angled-ceiling attic bedroom in Wyoming.
"You can just hop up here on the bed," says a smiling David Dow, the band's energetic front man, DJ and lyricist.
The space was even more crowded until Hersha's older sister moved out to go to college. There are actually two rooms here connected by a short hallway that Dow occupies as he relays details of the band's upcoming gig to its missing-in-action bass player's mother.
Recent Wyoming High School grads Hersha, Dow and Matt Horne have been on a feverish pace of practicing and planning for the biggest concert they've ever played, a free show Friday night at Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park to benefit the anti-sweatshop organization Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR). They've been a three-piece unit while bassist Simon Davenport is off at mountain bike camp.
The attic bedroom can hardly contain the energy bouncing among Hersha, Dow and Horne while practicing their song "Tumble." Yet all three concur that what I've witnessed is nothing compared to their stage presence.
"You have to see a live performance to really understand what we're all about," Dow says, a little out of breath from the heavy spoken words he just slammed over Hersha's angular guitar riffs and Horne's pile-driving beats.
Sitting in the living room of Hersha's parents' house, an American Four Square built in 1913 and perched along a shady lane that typifies this tranquil suburb, the three look like average 17- and 18-year-old teens -- short tufts of hair accenting wide smiles, hemp necklaces and bracelets, T-shirts, shorts.
On further inspection, though, you can see there's more awareness here than among your normal college-bound teens. They don't just aspire to be a famous Rock & Roll band -- they want to make music to make people think.
"Music with a message is always the most powerful kind," Hersha says, gushing at the mention of like-minded music stars like vocalist Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam or guitarist Tom Morrello of Rage Against the Machine.
"The lyrics are blunt," Dow chimes in. "They might spark something. When it comes to music, if I'm going to play, why just play? I want to make people stop and listen to it."
The foursome derives its band name from a former Wyoming High foreign exchange student whose free spirit inspired them. They play their self-described Hip Hop Rock & Roll to unleash what they see as the harsh realities of the outside world.
In "Gleason's Lament," Kruhm tackles its signature cause: sweatshops.
"Look at the tags they sew.
Not the machine wash part, the words right below.
'Made in USA by good ol' Joe Blow?'
No, actually it says made in Morocco."
The song goes on to criticize those who shop at Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch and even takes jabs at celebrities whose own clothing lines reportedly are made in foreign sweatshops.
But how can upper-middle class teens from a suburb with a median household income of about $60,000 effect change when they live worlds away from the grim conditions of sweatshops?
"I just promised myself I would do something," Hersha says.
When Hersha was 15, he says he stopped buying clothes made from sweatshops and became involved with such activism groups as Refuse & Resist and Amnesty International. He now buys his clothes only from thrift stores because, even if they do originate from sweatshops, he's not contributing to the manufacturers' profits.
"(Davenport) is on the exact same page," Hersha wrote in an e-mail. "(Dow and Horne) are getting there. They know about it and try to help, but they don't really try to buy 'clean' clothes. But they're getting there."
By using the lyric-focused medium of Rap rather than hooking fans onto a poppy verse-chorus-verse format, Hersha says, band members feel they can express their message more clearly.
All four realize they haven't experienced the same hardships of today's Hip Hop artists, many of whom grew up on tough inner-city streets, but they still feel the medium is a forceful way of expressing ideas.
"Hip Hop and Rock is our sound," Horne says. "We like to blend. We don't just stand for Hip Hop."
As hard as the band is working to educate people, they're mature enough to realize that not everyone gets it.
"Wyoming is a bubble," Dow says. "It's wealthy, and people don't understand the outside world. We're trying to open people's eyes through the intensity of our music. We want them to feel the music."
"Being here is almost fake," Horne says. "(Parents) want their kids to grow up outside of the (world's) problems, so it's hard for kids to grasp what's going on."
Although Dow says he doesn't get a sense of political apathy from his peers, he admits that he doesn't see much questioning of authority. Hersha simply thinks people don't care, and nothing makes him more upset than seeing people singing his lyrics while not knowing what they mean.
Hersha says he's always felt like somewhat of an outsider in Wyoming. He spent a good part of his childhood in Atlanta and notes that he doesn't live here "by choice."
Playing at the Eden Park event will be a catharsis of sorts for him, Hersha says.
"We'll be breaking out of Wyoming and getting the city there," he says. "We can just be how we are and not worry about making everyone feel at home."
Friday's benefit will be Kruhm's fourth and largest show to date. The young men are putting their savings accounts on the line in the hopes of doing the world some good.
The effort is grassroots organization at its best. Davenport's mother made the band T-shirts, while Hersha and Dow have been beating the pavement trying to find sponsors to cover at least part of their $5,000 investment to pull off the event. A friend is engineering their sound for next to nothing.
To get the ball rolling, the band went through the Cincinnati Recreation Commission (CRC) to find an outside venue for the concert. Ault Park in Mount Lookout was their first choice, but CRC officials advised them that the setting would be too serene for their raging Hip Hop/Rock sound.
The band secured the Eden Park date for $950 of their own money, plus $50 to rent a booth to sell items. (The majority of their other costs were for the T-shirts.)
The concert is free to the public, but the band plans to sell water and T-shirts to pay for their involvement. Riverbend has donated tickets for the B.B. King Blues Festival and the Mötley Crüe show for a raffle. Any profit goes to CLR.
According to Hersha, the band chose CLR because it could use the funds. CLR, having a wide demographic base, focuses on a grassroots organization to link a nationwide network of chapters.
This will be the first CLR benefit concert in Cincinnati, says Emily LaBarbera-Twarog, CLR's Midwest organizer -- evidence that the anti-sweatshop movement is growing, especially in the Tristate.
LaBarbera-Twarog characterizes Cincinnati's involvement in the movement as "up and down," mentioning that there was a successful leafleting protest at an area Target store in May, coinciding with 130 nationwide actions.
What amazes LaBarbera-Twarog most is the fact that Kruhm's young members are getting so heavily involved in activism.
"It's thrilling," she says. "I was doing activism by the time I was 14. They put a lot on their plate. It's exciting where different movements are now and that they have brought in folks at younger ages. These kids have more opportunities and organizational structures to help them plug in, and college organizations are building up high school organizations."
The anti-sweatshop movement has been seeing a surge in participation. In CityBeat's "Back to School" issue last summer, national activists identified the anti-sweatshop movement as the "most energetic student movement of the 1990s" ("Students Ready for a Semester of Struggle," issue of Aug. 26-Sept. 1, 1999).
For such a small number of public shows, Kruhm claims a sizable fan base of 600 to 700 jumping teen-agers, which they've built by playing private parties.
"We're the 'big band' in Wyoming," Dow says matter of factly while Hersha and Horne stare in agreement. "Now we're at our peak. We want to go away on a bang."
Ironically, band members plan to part ways within weeks of their biggest show, as each leaves for college at the end of the month. Dow will attend Emery University outside of Atlanta to study liberal arts. Hersha is bound for Ohio University to study audio production. Horne will attend Ohio State University for material science. And Davenport stays behind to finish up his remaining two years at Wyoming High.
A legacy will remain, however. The band is working on a CD called Everything for Everyone in hopes of releasing it later this month. Their debut album, Deez Cuts, is available through the group's Web site, www.kruhmsquad.com.
The new CD will be available at the Eden Park show -- as will words of wisdom from young people with a cause. ©
