"I think the police like the songs as well, because several times they asked me to sing...."
A couple of week's ago there was a post on Facebook saying Darren Nesbit had been arrested near the new Crawberry Hill anti-fracking protest camp near Hull…
`What's he been arrested for?' someone asked.
"singing…"
Yep. Darren Nesbit only has to open his vocal chords for the police to get touchy. The charge later got dropped.
Darren, aka Daznaz, first came to public prominence at the protest against perceived BBC bias last November, when, smack in the middle of the piazza at MediaCityUK and in front of a huge advert for The Voice, he belted out some wild protest songs, including an alternative version of the Twelve Days of Christmas - complete with `ten lords a looting' – and a specially written ditty for the mainstream media…
`I don't know but it seems to me
Ain't no truth at the BBC
I don't know how it feels to you
I'm sick of being taken for a fool…'
A few weeks later Darren was at Barton Moss with his guitar – and came to musically fire the protests for the following months and beyond. When fractivists slow walked the lorries to and from the IGas exploratory drilling site, Darren was there, in the front line, getting pushed down Barton Moss Road...
...When people sat down in front of the police lines protesting about GMP violence, Darren was there in the middle giving an impromptu concert. And when protectors locked on to giant tubes in the middle of Barton Moss Road, Darren was there, sat on top of the tea hut or somewhere, serenading them while they were cut free by the GMP Protester Removal Team…Bob Marley's One Love was popular…GMP IGas Private Army was very popular...You Can Stick Your New Word Order was very, very popular, while People Got The Power became an anthem…
The latter is one of the tracks on Darren's new Barton Moss EP – four songs inspired by, or written, at Barton Moss. In keeping with the tone of the protests, the tunes are not punk angry but laid back and insistent.
People Got The Power is set to a kind of fuzz guitar backing with an infectious, urgent beat and persuasive vocals… `Power to the people 'cos the people got the power/Tell me can you hear it? It's getting stronger by the hour… Power…Power…Power…'
"At Barton Moss that was started by Dan, it's a really old protest song but I expanded it and made it into a full song" says Darren "I write stuff about what's happening right now, that absolutely speaks to me. The bottom line is to raise the vibration."
Days of Jericho, the first track on the EP, certainly does that. Any song that begins `They've played with your mind ever since you opened your eyes' should speak to everyone. It's another easy-on-the ear, foot tapping, psyche-teasing call to question everything.
"It was developed, sat in a half bender on Barton Moss Road, because there's a whole energy about the place" Darren explains "Before, I always wrote songs by myself but at Barton Moss I've been able to sit with a group of people, play a few songs and then start a new one while I'm sat there, which is really nice."
Route 22 and Life On Earth, which complete the mini-collection, kind of bring an expansive American landscape feel to Salford...reflecting that Barton Moss isn't inner city urban angst-land but beautiful green belt countryside (for the time being). The songs developed for the EP are evocative of the place and people.
"It's feeling comfortable and feeling at home with people you've just met and who I now consider to be some of my best friends" says Darren "In terms of writing it's been fantastic. Some songs are directly about fracking but it's how that relates to the grander picture as well."
Darren - who lives in Bury but whose family is from Salford - has been singing on and off for twenty five years but says he didn't `wake up' until last year.
"A couple of years ago, after getting ripped off by yet another company I'd worked for, I decided to just do music so spent the next year and a half, six to eight hours a day, every day, learning songs, getting better at writing songs, really accelerating what I'd learned in the previous years" he recalls "I started playing live around Manchester again in 2012, doing open night acoustic gigs. It was nice but the only people who go to those are other acoustic musicians."
"There are some great musicians out there and a good network but none of them are involved with this movement" he explains "People who are the cool hipsters in the pop industry write egotistical `all about me' type songs but as far I'm concerned that shit's over. I just want to hear something that's for the people.
"I didn't wake up until 2013" he adds "From that summer I went on the Bedroom Tax marches at Albert Square, and the big anti cuts march, then the BBC thing…then Barton Moss started…
And at Barton Moss, Darren became central to the local movement. So central that, even when he wasn't present at the Moss, people still sang his songs on the daily protest walks…
"I love it, it's great!" he laughs "I think the police like the songs as well, because several times they asked me to sing. If it was a bit quiet or a bit intense they'd go `Come on give us a song Darren…' But I'm a bit of a rebel, so if the police ask me to do something obviously I'm going to stay silent for the rest of that walk."
For everyone else, Darren's songs, he says "are about communicating and raising the vibrations, raising the spirit…"
Even those who are politically allergic should take a listen to the Barton Moss EP. Amongst the flood of mainstream media and nothing music, these incredibly catchy songs actually mean something…and were honed in the battle of Barton Moss.
The Barton Moss EP by Daznez is available on download from one of the following…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Barton-Moss-Ep-Daznez/dp/B00KCKSO8I
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/barton-moss-ep/id877603515
http://www.7digital.com/artist/daznez/release/barton-moss-ep
See also previous Salford Star article on Darren Nesbit at the BBC – click here
Photos by Steven Speed
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