One Day as a Lion

Rolling Stone - 4 stars out of 5 -- "One Day are an exercise in simplicity: Theodore's prog-rock pummeling is compressed into massive funk beats, while de la Rocha's keyboards conjure brute bass lines and heavy-metal guitar chords." Kerrang - "Featuring the surprisingly funky beats of former Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, ONE DAY AS A LION is five songs and 20 minutes of dirty, groove-laden rock and hip-hop that finds de la Rocha in typically fiery form..."

A collaborative project between Zack De La Rocha (vocalist of Rage Against The Machine) and Jon Theodore (drummer for countless alternative acts, most notably The Mars Volta until 2006), One Day As A Lion takes its name from a photograph taken by George Rodriguez in 1970, containing the legend 'It's Better To Live One Day As A Lion Than A Thousand Years As A Lamb'. De La Rocha provides his inimitable vocals and contributes on keyboards, while Theodore's progressive, fusion-influenced drumming fills in the gaps. Released on the Epitaph-related ANTI record label, this self-titled EP is a must for fans of De La Rocha's politically-infused incantations, as well as Theodore's inventive and influential musicianship.|

Here it is...finally. One Day as a Lion are Zack de la Rocha, lead vocalist (and current as of July 2008) for Rage Against the Machine, and Jon Theodore, former drummer with the Mars Volta. De la Rocha and Theodore have been reportedly working on this project since 2006. The end result is a volatile mix of rhythm, noise, and radical poetry. De la Rocha is no stranger to the great political poets; his brand of rapping and freestyling has always been saturated with their influence as well as his own constantly evolving political thought. Many of these writers are cited in the set's acknowledgements -- Jimmy Santiago Baca, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Junot Diaz, to name just four. The name of the band comes from a near mythic photograph by the great George Rodriguez published in 1970: "It's better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb." The slogan is a tag centered in a frame on a white wall in Boyle Heights. Knowing this, you might believe you have an idea of what these songs are about, but you'd be wrong; you only think you do. Yes, these five songs, clocking in at just over 20 minutes, are an intense racket of sociopolitical noise. Theodore's drums add the taut, tightly wound pulse of the lion, the phrase, the breath, the heart of the sound, while de la Rocha's keyboards blurt, pulse, and skronk a post-9/11 warning siren throughout. Some nonsense has been made of this entire project being influenced by Led Zeppelin -- that seems to be the thing to write in 2008. Truth is, one track, "Ocean View," touches on Zep's mighty tune "The Ocean" in the melody of its refrain, but its lyrical content is in stark, even violent contrast to the former hard rock heroes as de la Rocha spits atop some mighty organic beats and squalling synths: "...Oceans of tears now rise aflame to tear them down/Oceans of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down...." It's poetry, it's political, it's mysterious -- until you sit down and let this killer track knock you flat on your back with its rage, power, and knowledge of reckoning. The rest you are going to have to check out, save to say that all five of these cuts are essential, pure kinetic anger motivated by love for people (to paraphrase Che Guevara). This is a five-cut call to arms. No matter what ultimately happened with One Day as a Lion, we now have this document, perfect in its short sparking length and raucous in its truth. Twenty minutes? How long was the first Sex Pistols album, 30 with some filler? How long was Grandmaster Flash's "The Message"? Eight? There isn't any filler here; it's all the aural ignition of a gasoline bomb going off in your ears. ~ Thom Jurek

ザック・デ・ラ・ロッチャがレイジ・アゲインスト・ザ・マシーン脱退後の2000年から始動させていたという、ジョン・セオドア（マーズ・ヴォルタの元ドラマー）とのユニット。ジャック・ジョンソンのスタジオで録音された5曲入りEPは、シンプルだが粗野で鬼気迫るドラムを主軸に置いた、ビート・オリエンテッドな音作りが印象的。2003年にネットから放ったDJシャドウとの“March Of Death”とさほど路線は変わらないが、細やかなアレンジが革新的で身震いする。ただ、それ以上にジョージ・ロドリゲスの写真に収められた〈子羊として1000年生きるよりも、ライオンとして1日生きるほうがいい〉との言葉から引用されたユニット名のもとに放つ、ザックの新たなステートメントという事実が重要なのだ。
bounce (C)宮原 亜矢