Filed under: tarareidtopless.com
McClard's version of events seem plausible, and de la Rocha may indeed have asked him if he could borrow it.
In any case, it seems clear that de la Rocha's use of the phrase has been most responsible for popularizing it.
Sources indicate that the phrase was coined by musician Zack de la Rocha in 1989.
Zack de la Rocha apparently came up with the phrase independently and did not borrow it from anyone else. The phrase was originally intended as the title of a song for a group called "Inside Out" of which Mr de la Rocha was a member.
Sources:
"Explanations:
The Name....'Rage Against the Machine':
The actual phrase was the title of an Inside Out song. Inside Out is a hardcore band on Revelation Records that Zack was in before they broke up and he formed RATM with Tom Morello. 'Rage Against the Machine' was the working title for Inside Out's second album, but since they broke up, it seemed the most suitable name to sum up the band's sound, politics, and mission." The common question is, then, 'what machine are they raging against?'. According to Tom Morello, 'The machine can be anything from the police in L.A. that can tear motorists from their cars and beat them to a pulp and get away with it, to the state capitalist machine that tried to make you just a mindless cog and sortof 'behave' and never confront the system and just look forward to the weekend and the next six pack of beer.' The machine has come to mean any form of illegitimate authority that dehumanizes and degrades." Source: Musicfanclubs.org: Rage Against the Machine
http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/ratmdebut.htm
"Why the name 'Rage Against the Machine'?
It just seemed appropriate for that thing it is that we do. Zack came up with the name it was originally gonna be the - Zack played in a hardcore band called Inside Out, and it was originally gonna be the name of the next Inside Out recordbut it seemed very appropriate for the kindof music we were playing and the attitude and the politics that were coming across." Source: RATM.org: "Interview with Tom Morello at PinkPop 1993"
http://www.ratm.org/info/article/pinkpop.htm
"Zack de la Rocha came up with the name 'Rage Against the Machine' before the band ever formed, while he was in a California hardcore band called 'Inside Out'. Inside Out had a song titled 'Rage Against the Machine', that was also going to be the name of the band's second record. Instead, the band broke up and never released a second record. So when Zack met up with Tom Morello and formed a band, 'Rage Against the Machine' seemed to be the most appropriate band name for the music and the ideas that were being put across. Tom Morello describes exactly what 'machine' they are raging against: 'The machine can be anything from the police in the streets in Los Angeles who can tear motorists from their car and beat them to a pulp and get away from it, to the overall international state capitalist machinery that tries to make you just a mindless cog, and not to think critically and never confront the system , and to just sortof "behave" and look forward to the next weekend and next six pack of beer." source: sannyasin.catus.net, cached by Google
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:W9vTo_6s92IC:sannyasin.catus.net/bio/bio.html+%22rage+against+the+machine%22+%22up+with+the+name%2+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
"When I came up with the name in, like, 1989-it was actually supposed to be the title of an Inside Out record -I never thought it would have this much weight associated with to it." source: sannyasin.catus.net, cached by Google
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:x7sr002BHdcC:sannyasin.catus.net/articles/zack.htm+%22came+up+with+the+name%22+%22rage+against+the+machine%22+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
Rage Against the Machine's name clearly has a lot to do with its opposition to the established political system.
The use of the word "machine" as a metaphor for a political system or group "displaying impressive or ruthless efficiency" dates from the 1800s.
Here's an example from 1888 that's listed in the Oxford English Dictionary: "Now there are three Machines in New York; two Democratic, because the Democratic party..is divided into two factions.., and one Republican." Source: Oxford English Dictionary
search strategy: "rage against the machine", "up with the name"
I hope this helps.
McClard says:
"I came up with the name Rage Against The Machine. It was a phrase that I wrote for a column in No Answers #9 where I was challenging hardcore to be a force against corporate capitalism. I was calling on a war on the 'industry' of music, and I was calling on all those involved in hardcore to take control of their lives and strive for independence from the machine that is our society. Zach really liked the phrase, and he wanted to use it as the title of the Inside Out LP. I said he could of course. However, the Inside Out LP never came out, and Zach instead decided to use the phrase as the name of his new band."
"Censorship: Kent McClard's Response"
Ebbulition Records
http://www.ebullition.com/censorship.html#7
Another page presents an excerpt from No Answers that contains this phrase at the end:
"We need a revolution within ourselves. We need a revolution within our scene. We need a revolution. Do you understand? Do I understand? We need to radically alter the way we conduct our lives. We need to change the way we relate to each other. We need to rearrange our goals and desires. The machine must be destroyed. I mean it. It is no joke. It is no game. It is no lyric. It is no idle threat. It is a war. Wage war. Commit. Agitate. Educate. Speak. Act. Learn. Disobey. Rage against the machine."
"Lyrics and background - album: do we speak a dead language?"
downset
http://downset.wise-ass.nl/album2.html
But this does not necessarily invalidate juggler-ga's answer. In one of the links in the answer, Zack de la Rocha says that he "came up with the name". This could mean that he invented it, or perhaps that he decided that McClard's phrase would be a good name. But, as it stands, it looks like de la Rocha's word versus McClard's.
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