A helpful rock 'n' roll tip from Propagandhi: A vinegar-soaked T-shirt is "pretty much useless" protection against tear gas.

No ordinary tip. Then again, Propagandhi is no ordinary rock band. Unless they're doing it for recreational pleasure, most rock bands don't get gassed - as these guys did during the protests at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April.

The Winnipeg band played an abandoned Ikea warehouse the night before attending the protest. After being detained by cops and let go following threats of media attention, the musicians made it to the site just in time to see the fence come down and all hell break loose.

Guitarist Chris Hannah recalls there was no escape from the gas.

"It was a terrible, depressing day," he says.

As for the violence of both the cops and the protesters, he says, "Putting up the fence was provocation enough to me. That's what I felt. I cheered when the fence came down and I cheered when people threw back gas canisters at the police. I know a lot of people don't think that's right and people have to learn to control themselves, yes, but you had to be there. There's such a feeling of rage that you are paying taxes to be gassed and locked out of an economic process that's going to affect your life.

"There's more than one way to look at the violence, but overall, on the whole day, I felt by far the police were far more violent than the protesters. I'm biased, but I watched it. I'm not some young kid who just wants to smash the state and kill pigs."

In the blitz of media coverage of globalization protests - protests reaching a level not seen since the Vietnam War - sometimes it's hard to determine exactly why people are protesting. Global economics are complex enough to make even U.S. President George W. Bush's eyes glaze over. Er, bad example. Some of the protesters don't even know themselves. Full-page articles on what the fashionable protester is wearing don't help.

Hannah explains: "I guess we were there because we felt the same as a lot of people who made the trip: the agreements being discussed and sometimes ratified behind closed doors - and in this case behind a fence - doesn't really resonate with our idea of what democracy is.

"At the very least, it was a protest against that level of anti-democratic actions."

Playing tonight at Red's - the show moved from the Arts Barns because of an evil right-wing conspiracy or a liquor licence fracas, depending on who you believe - Propagandhi is a politically inclined band, in case you didn't notice. They always have been. They started as teenagers expressing knee-jerk emotions in angry punk songs and evolved from there. Fifteen years later, they're angrier than ever, although the targets of their wrath are more well-defined. The band's latest album is called Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes. The title says it all.

"It's what moves us," Hannah says. "We're not really moved by the typical MuchMusic-MTV relationship songs. It doesn't really resonate with us. We're inspired to write songs about things we see we're depressed about and angered about and stories about resistance to oppression that inspire us.

"For us, the band is the only way we'd be able to get our ideas across to anybody else but ourselves. It's the only thing we're even half-good at and the only thing we're even half-interested in. We're not scholars. We're just these guys who grew up in small-town Manitoba who decided to take a different look at the world. And we love fast, heavy music."

Hannah's dad was a fighter pilot based in Cold Lake, by the way, so it's not as if he inherited leftist opinions from hippie parents. Quite the opposite - which makes for some tense conversations around the dinner table at Christmastime.

Hannah laughs, "We usually just shut up and eat."

For more information on how to fight the power with subversive rock 'n' roll, log onto www.g7welcomingcommittee.com.