The right record will always find you at the right time. Take last Saturday afternoon as an example. I was in Little Tokyo, flipping through 45s at Salt Box and just happened to come across “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” the 1981 single from Heaven 17. Did I have this? Did it matter? Even if I did have a copy, I could use another one because this nearly 45-year-old song is the jam for right now. Or, rather, it should be the jam for right now.
I didn’t even have to listen to the song for the earworm to bury itself in my brain. “Have you heard it on the news?” it goes, “About this fascist groove thang.”
I live close to Little Tokyo and am in the neighborhood often, but Saturday’s visit was specifically to support the local businesses in a neighborhood that’s been at the center of the current brouhaha surrounding Los Angeles. The Federal Building and Metropolitan Detention Center are basically in between Little Tokyo and El Pueblo de Los Angeles/Olvera Street, and that’s where the bulk of the protests that made the news broadcasts earlier this month happened.
Boarded up windows and some remnants of protest graffiti remained in Little Tokyo, but, otherwise, the scene was typical for a Saturday. Vendors were set up along the sidewalks, selling enamel pins, toys and accessories. The restaurants and snack joints appeared busy. It seemed like a lot people made a point to visit the neighborhood this weekend.
How do you explain what’s been happening in L.A. to people who have only seen what the algorithm decides to show? L.A. Taco has tremendous coverage, but you’ll also find good reporting over at L.A. Public Press and LAist.
ICE raids are still happening, as are protests, across the greater Los Angeles area. The federal government will keep pushing the narrative that this is about “illegal” immigration, but when you see that those detained include citizens, you’ve got to call bullshit. This is the current regime being racist af. Like the song says, “Evil men with racist views/Spreading all across the land.”
TBH, it’s wild to me how a song from early ‘80s England makes so much sense to the U.S. right now. Back in late ‘70s Sheffield, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed a band with Philip Oakey called The Human League. You might have heard of them. They recorded two seminal synthpop albums, Reproduction and Travelogue, and then the original lineup split, with Ware and Marsh going on to form British Electric Foundation and Heaven 17, the latter taking its name from the fictional band in A Clockwork Orange and bringing in Glenn Gregory on vocals.
The first Heaven 17 single was “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” which was banned by the BBC for dissing Reagan. According to Wikipedia, the song was a “minor dance hit in the U.S.,” whatever that means. It also came in at number 47 on the KROQ Top 106.7 of 1981 and I absolutely remember hearing it fairly often on KROQ Flashback Weekends and the Flashback Lunch in the ‘90s, so maybe “Fascist Groove Thang” was stickier in L.A.? I don’t know. You’ll sometimes hear it at ‘80s clubs here, but not as often as “Let Me Go,” which is the stickiest Heaven 17 song in this city.
Anyhow, “Fascist Groove Thang” is high energy, punky and funky and overtly political in a way that ‘80s music often was, even if people try to deny that in their misguided fits of nostalgia for the decade. It’s also prescient. The lyrics indicate the song was written before Reagan was sworn in as president, but they describe not only what would transpire during the following eight years, but the next 45 years of U.S. politics. I mean, if Reagan hadn’t won in 1980, would Donald Trump be anything more than a New York real estate asshole?
“Generals tell him what to do/Stop your good times dancing/Train their guns on me and you/Fascist thang advancing,” the song goes.
After the vinyl dig, we headed over to T.O.T. for dinner. At some point, likely while I was taking a bite of a steaming hot curry chicken cutlet, my husband looked at his phone then said that Trump had bombed Iran. I’m not even sure how to respond. It’s hard to be shocked when the asshole-in-chief levies one evil decision after the next.
Later, we walk down Alameda, past the detention center There are no protestors out front. There are roughly five dudes in fatigues stationed around the front. I see the marines patch on the uniform of one of the guys, but I’m trying not to make eye contact because there is no way I can do that without rolling my eyes at the absurdity of this whole situation.
“Brothers, sisters, we don’t need this fascist groove thang,” was Heaven 17’s rallying cry and it’s the mantra that L.A. and, really, the entire U.S., needs right now. American right wingers have gained control by pitting us against each other. They want you to fear L.A. They probably don’t want you to know about the people who are keeping a lookout for ICE or helping those who can’t work right now or offering other kinds of aid to those currently in need. They probably don’t want you to know that L.A. is basically doing what L.A. always does, which is pitching in and helping each other out.
But, this is the point. If you’re afraid of L.A., then, when Trump sends in the military, you’re going to think we deserve it. And when scores of people are detained and our state’s senator is roughed up by federal goons at a press conference, you’re going to think they all deserve it. You’ll tell yourself that this doesn’t affect you, that it will never affect you. Eventually, though, it will, and the more you continue to delude yourself, the more power you cede to a madman who thinks he can hold U.S. cities under siege, send out masked minions to kidnap people off the streets and drop bombs on foreign nations whenever the fuck he feels like it. The old new wave song is right. We don’t need this fascist groove thang.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates. Subscribe to the weekly Beatique newsletter.
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