REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIQUE NO. 1

For some months, persistant rumors of guerrilla activity in the High Sierra had been going around the Bay Area — rumors that the Midnight Raiders — a group of militant, highly-trained revolutionaries — were planning a series of strikes aimed directly at the “pig record companies and rip-off FM radio stations.” I tried to make contact with the Raiders, but nothing came down. Underground newspsper contacts advised me that it would be impossible for a member of the press to penetrate the liberated territory. Still, I put out the word whenever I could: I wanted to speak with a representative of the guerrillas, and would submit to any security measures necessary.

After six months of hassling, when the contact was made it was quite matter-of-fact. I was to leave immediately for Yosemite Valley, establish a campsite, and wait; I would be contacted again..

The Valley was relatively deserted when I arrived. The passes to the East were still closed by snow, the ground was frozen solid, and the Valley was still in the grip of Winter. Luckily, firewood was plentiful and I kept a fire burning around the clock. I passed the time reading, exercising, and writing in my journal.

On the morning of the fourth day I was awakened by soft-steps outside my tent, and a voice saying* “Spring’s late this year.” It was the recognition code.

“Yeah, it’ll be a gas when it comes,” I replied, and pulled on my clothes as quickly as I could. When I stepped into the frosty morning, a young man was warming his hands by the embers of my fire. He was dressed in heavy winter gear: an antarctic parka with fur-lined hood, skiing gloves, warm snow boots. He carried a rifle.

We shook hands, introduced ourselves, and prepared for the hike to camp. The man’s name was Bob Dylan — real names were never used. “It’s a two-day climb,” he said, “so you’d better backpack. We’ll have to bury everything you leave behind.” Soon I had nearly everything I needed strapped onto my back. We scattered the ashes of the fire, kicked dirt and twigs over the campsite, and set out through the woods.

Soon we were climbing a steep trail that led directly up one of the Valley walls. We walked in silence, Dylan keeping a close look-out. After several hours, a small side trail appeared to the right. A sign hung from a chain, reading: “DANGER — TRAIL CLOSED DO NOT ENTER.” We stepped over the chain and continued our climb.

“Hey, is this cool?” I asked. Dylan just put his finger to his lips and kept walking. Half and hour later we found ourselves on a section of trail running directly along the edge of a sheer cliff. There had been a guard rail; I could see it lying halfway down the cliff, wedged into some shrubbery. The ground was covered with scree, and Dylan pressed himself against the rock wall on the side away from the drop. Then he traversed the dangerous section with infinite care. I followed, slowly and fearfully. A few hundred feet further along the trail we left the precipice, cut sharply around a rock outcropping, and stopped.

“It’s cool now,” said Dylan: “The pigs never come up here, and even if they did they wouldn’t make it past the slide. There are brothers up the slope with big rocks ready to roll down. As a matter of fact, that’s how the fence got offed.” He reached into his parka and pulled out a joint. We passed it back and forth carefully to avoid dropping it from our gloved fingers.

“Isn’t dope supposed to be counter-revolutionary?” 1 asked. Dylan choked on a lungful of smoke, coughed, and shook his head despairingly. “Are you kidding?” he asked.

“No, the Panthers ...” I started.

“That’s their trip,” he said. “We dig the Panthers and everything, but we’ve got our own thing going. They know about it. It’s cool.”

I gestured at the rifle. “Don’t the rangers hassle you about the guns?”

“One tried a month ago.” said Dylan, grinning a thoroughly nasty grin. “He had no accident.”

“Oh,” I said. “Uh . . . how long have the Midnight Raiders been up here?”

“I’ve only been around for a couple of months,” he said, “but some of the guys have been here for two years. It’s a good place to hang out. No smog. It’s clean, you know?”

I nodded, and we started climbing again. The dope must have been killer, because the next portion of the trail was definitely hallucinatory: it seemed to go on forever. I think we crossed a frozen waterfall (hanging onto pitons), but it seems incredible, in retrospect, that I could have such a traverse. After a while we were walking on a broad plateau, which took us the rest of the day to cross. By sunset we had reached the base of a small mountain.

“It’s only a couple of hours from here,” said Dylan, “but it’s a rough climb in the dark. We’ll crash here for the night, and make it on in tomorrow morning. I’ve got some rice if we can find firewood.” We were both hungry, and finding wood didn’t take long. Soon a fire was blazing, and we watched the stars coming out as we ate.

After we had done an after dinner joint, Dylan got to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped from the circle of firelight, and presently I heard music coming out pf the darkness. Then Dylan was back — carrying a small guitar.

“Far out,” he said. “I stashed this last week, and it’s still here!” He sat down near the fire and began to play. He was really great.

“Hey, man, have you ever recorded?” I asked after a while.

Dylan’s smile disappeared. “Yeah, once,” he said. I waited. His eyes burned with sudden bitterness as he went on, “That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re all here. We’ve been ripped off by the pig record companies once too often! We believ d them when they said they understood our music. We let ourselves get sucked in by their big-time bullshit and artistic freedom hype. We found out where that was at pretty quick. So we’ve ended up here, together. And a few brothers and sisters from the Weatherpeople (who were trying to make a little bread playing music) ended up here too.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“We’re gonna off ’em,” he said, so softly the words were nearly lost in the thin night air. “We’re fighting for our lives, ’cause music is our life. And we’re gonna win. Or we’re gonna die. But we’ll probably win, you know? Either way it’s cool, win or die, ’cause if we lose we might as well be dead. We just want to play for people, but if we have to kick some ass to do it — well, we’ll kick some ass.”

“Off who?” I asked, but Dylan shook his head. “Tomorrow,” he said, and started to play again. When the fire had burned low we got into our sleeping bags and lay watching the stars. Then we were asleep.

Late the next morning we reached camp. Dylan had been silent during most of the climb, and he left me at a large white-camoflaged tent. I waited for someone to come out, but after a few minutes nobody had appeared. I looked around, saw no one, and slipped inside.

Three large maps dominated the tent: city maps of Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Colored pins were stuck into the maps, occasionally forming into clusters. The clusters were marked with small flags reading, “RCA,” “Elektra,” “MGM,” and so forth. I was trying to make sense out of the display when two men entered the tent. They had long hair, and wore army fatigues. Their “names” were Chuck Berry and Ringo Starr.

“Dig the map?” one of them asked. “Four cats were busted getting the information on there. One of them’s still doing time for breaking and entering. It’s a drag, but he’s cool behind it. He’s getting out in a couple of months.”

. “What does it mean?” I asked.

“The red pins, dig? Those are recording company executives — homes and offices. The white pins are pig rock stars. The yellow pins are pressing plants and studios. Green pins are “underground” FM radio station. It’s all real neat. When we move, everybody gets printed copies of the master maps, broken down into sectors. The offices get bombed. Very simple operation, you know? The studios, pressing plants and radio stations get liberated. And defended. That’s where we make our stand, from the studios. The means of production, you dig?”

“What about the executives and musicians?”

“We turn ’em over to the people. If they don’t force our hand, that is. If we have to, we’ll. . . Well, we won’t have a lot of time to play games, you know what I mean? We aren’t into terrorism as a tactic, but if they rush us ue’ll probably have to off ’em.” He shook his head, sadly. “You want to see the rest of the layout?”

I hadn’t expected anything as well organized as what they showed me. A rifle range, and eight freaks practicing with M-l’s. A class in bomb construction and demolition. A political education class. A guerrilla radio workshop. A studio, with eight-track facilties, where musicians were learning how to place microphones and run the board. A first-aid facility. It was impressive.

Asked about the political education class, Chuck Berry said, “Well, most of the Midnight Raiders are pragmatic Marxists, which isn’t the same thing as your classic Marxist-Leninist at all. When a cat comes up here we don’t ask him to quote the red book for us. All we want to know is whether he’s ready to put his life on the line for the rest of us. If he is, the politics can wait for a while. But most of us get into politics pretty heavy. It’s funny, the way it works out: there are more pictures of John Sinclair around here than Mao. It’s the way we look at things, as musicians.”

There was only one question left to ask. “When are you going to move?” I said.

Berry looked at me. I tried to look back with the same intensity, but I finally had to look away. He was heavy. I got the impression he was looking through me, seeing things I had forgotten w'ere there. When he spoke, his voice was soft and intense. “Why are you here, man?”

I started to mutter something about communication, responsibility of the press, spreading information, but I ran down in mid-phrase. Why was I here? A story? Sure, but I had passed up stories that hadn’t involved half, the risks that this one did. I thought hard. Was there something else?

I spoke before I knew what I was going to say. “I want in,” I said, and felt a rush of emotion course through me that left me shaking and scared and deeply peaceful.

“Cool, man,” said Ringo, smiling. “We figured you might have it together enough. See, the thing about communication is right on. We have to tell people why we’re moving — it’s essential if we’re gonna have any support at all once we move. People have to dig that we’re fighting for them as well as for ourselves, and the only way that’s gonna happen is if someone can write it down and get it out. Ain’t it weird? At this stage of the game, we need a promo man! and I guess you’re him, if you’ve got the chops for it.”

“The other thing,” said Berry, “is that you can’t leave. In any case. See, things are getting really close. We were set to boogie two weeks ago, but some of the cats.on the outside laid this trip about PR on us. We rapped it out, and they were right. So you’re here, and it’s getting close to the time. We have to move soon; we can’t keep an operation as large as this a secret forever. I mean, we’ve got centers in Vermont and Topanga Canyon, too. All it takes is one slip . . . and we’ve had it.”

“I can dig it,” I said, and went off to find a place for my sleeping bag. That was a month ago, and things are moving along. I’m sending this out by special courier; more will follow. But not much more. Sometimes words are more effective than bullets, but finally it comes down to armed struggle. When that happens, I’ll be out in the streets, writing it down as long as I can put pencil to paper.

The people’s music must belong to the “people. If you can dig that, keep your ears open and be ready to move. The Raiders will be in your town soon. Maybe we’re there already. You never know, you dig?