Darryl Cherney

Darryl Cherney is a musician and environmental activist. He is a member of the Earth First! environmental movement. He lives in Humboldt County, California.

He has produced five albums of his own political satire, and founded Environmentally Sound Promotions and Churn It Up Records. Together with Greg King, he co-founded the movement to save what eventually became the federally protected Headwaters Forest Reserve near Eureka, California. He organized four rallies in support of Julia Butterfly Hill's two-year tree sit. He organized the Redwood Summer campaign with Judi Bari.

One of his songs, "Where Are We Gonna Work (When the Trees Are Gone?)", has been covered by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon on their album Prairie Home Invasion.

Political campaigns

Cherney ran for Congress in the 1988 Democratic primary, where he met fellow activist Judi Bari.

He ran for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2016. He ran a "no money in politics" campaign on social media, featuring the hashtag #FeelTheChern.

Pipe bomb and aftermath

On May 24, 1990, Cherney was injured when a pipe bomb exploded in the car he and Judi Bari were traveling in. Bari was severely injured by the explosion. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which accused Bari and Cherney of bombing themselves. Bari and Cherney subsequently sued the FBI and Oakland Police agents for violations of the United States Constitution. Cherney and the late Bari's estate were awarded $4.4 million for violations of the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and the Fourth Amendment (the right to be free from unlawful arrest and illegal search and seizure).

In 2012, he told KHUM radio that he does not consider himself an "extremist," preferring the term "radical." In 2012, Cherney's documentary film Who Bombed Judi Bari? was released.^[1] There is an ongoing lawsuit against the FBI to prevent it from destroying evidence that could contain the bomber's DNA, and Cherney indicated in a Democracy Now interview that he believes the FBI was guilty of not only framing him and Judi but of a cover-up.^[2] Cherney has stated elsewhere that “I believe the bomber is findable.”^[1] In October 2012, Cherney announced a $50,000 reward “for information leading to the identification, arrest, prosecution and incarceration of the person or persons responsible for the attempted assassination of Judi Bari by placing a bomb under the seat of her car.”^[3]

Discography

• I Had To Be Born This Century (Churn It Up Records, 1987, 2004)^[4]

1. Earth First
2. Where Are We Gonna Work When the Trees Are Gone?
3. Chernobyl Blues
4. Houses and Cars
5. Sunshine On The Mountain
6. The Ballad of BLM
7. It's Camp
8. The Eel River Flood of 1986
9. Give 'Em Hell, Sally Bell
10. Sinkyone
11. Big Mountain Will Not Fall
12. Aileen
13. The True Value Hardware Country Showdown (at the Fortuna Rodeo)
14. Spit Out the Lights
15. Mosquito Party

• They Sure Don't Make Hippies Like They Used To (Churn It Up Records, 1989, 2004)^[4]

1. Xerox the Money
2. The Board of Forestry Song
3. Potter Valley Mill
4. Earth First ! Maid
5. You Can't Clearcut Your Way to Heaven
6. Free the Dead
7. We're All Dead Ducks
8. The Ballad of Don Hodel
9. They Sure Don't Make Hippies Like They Used To
10. The Ballad of the Lonesome Tree Spiker
11. Knocking on Extinctions Door
12. Stop The War (Rod MacDonald)
13. Running For My Life
14. Where's Bosco?
15. Spike a Tree for Jesus
16. This Monkeywrench of Mine

• Timber (Churn It Up Records, 1991, 2004) - with Judi Bari & George Shook^[4]

1. On The Edge
2. Maxxam's On The Horizon
3. Where Are We Gonna Work When The Trees Are Gone?
4. L-P (sung by Judi Bari) (Bari/Lyons)
5. Swimming 'Cross The Rio Grande
6. El Pio (Cherney/Shook)
7. Who Bombed Judi Bari?
8. Earth First!
9. He Looked A Whole Lot Like Jesus (Roselle/Cherney)
10. Arizona Power Lines
11. Living On Borrowed Time
12. Earth Night Action (Roselle/Cherney)
13. You Can't Clearcut Your Way To Heaven

• If A Tree Falls (Rhino Entertainment, 1996) by various artists^[5]

11. You Can't Clearcut Your Way To Heaven - Darryl Cherney

• Who Bombed Judi Bari? (soundtrack, 1997)^[4]
• White Tribal Music (Churn It Up Records, 1999)^[4]

1. White Tribal Music
2. Reggae On The River Revolutionary
3. Grants Pass
4. One Ton Of Marijuana
5. Xerox The Money
6. Ballad Of Jan Iris
7. Potter Valley Mill
8. The FBI Stole My Fiddle
9. Price William Sound
10. There Really Is A Fire Out There
11. Box Of Wine
12. Jesus Was A Mushroom
13. Five Billion Turds A Day
14. Entropy
15. You Can't Clearcut Your Way To Heaven

• Bush It! (Alternative Tentacles, 2002) - Darryl Cherney & The Chernobles^[6]

1. Bush It!
2. Send George Bush a Pretzel

• Real American (Churn It Up Records, 2004) - Darryl Cherney & The Chernobles^[4]

1. Earth First! (We'll Log the Other Planets Later)
2. The Great Medford, Oregon Potato Gun Massacree
3. The Ghosts of Mississippi
4. Bush It!
5. Sovereign Nation
6. Sell It On eBay
7. Take Away My Name
8. Fire
9. Steelworker Blues
10. I'm Gonna Run for President
11. The Beach at Galveston
12. Send George Bush a Pretzel
13. Take Me To Belize

Notes

External links

• Darryl Cherney's home page
• Darryl Cherney for President site
• Darryl Cherney YouTube channel
• Darryl Cherney on IMDB
• Who Bombed Judy Bari? documentary
• March 2012 interview with Cherney about his documentary, from Democracy Now!.
• Infamous Troubadour: The Life, Times and Future of Darryl Cherney, North Coast Journal, February 17, 2005.
• Who Bombed Judi Bari? Los Angeles Times film review.
• Interview with Darryl Cherney in Modern Pagans, RE/Search publications.
• Interview with Cherney on Independent Eye's public radio series Hitchhiking off the Map.