I don’t post too often about politics here, but this current election season seems fairly exceptional, so I am going to again part from convention –- pardon the pun –- and dabble in that taboo topic, albeit with a nod to this blog’s normal preoccupations.
Rock ‘n’ Roll and politicians rarely play nice together. Aspiring candidates want to appear populist, hip and down with the kids, so they play canonical favorites at their rallies –- only to be scolded, in predictable course, by the rockers responsible for those songs for appropriating their music without express consent. It’s happened more times than can be humanly quantified, replicated this past week at the RNC, where Trump’s been playing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” -- rather presumptuously –- much to hirsute guitarist Brian May’s “frustration.” Really nothing new about that story at all. Reagan did it to Springsteen. Rand Paul did it to Rush. Sarah Palin did it to Heart. It’s old news.
In those instances, one feels that Republicans should really stick with unmistakably affirmed supporters in that realm, but I guess Ted Nugent and Kid Rock can only be at so many places at once.
But there were a couple of other rock/RNC stories that broke recently that I thought were a bit more fun.
First up, there’s G.E. Smith. If his name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, you may recognize this sorta journeyman guitarist as a long-time player for folks like Hall & Oates and David Bowie (look for him in the video for “Fashion”). More famously, he was the longtime bandleader for “Saturday Night Live” (as well as prefiguring Gene Wilder as Gilda Radner’s husband). In any case, Smith is apparently a card-carrying Trump-supporter and leads the house band at this year’s arguably troubled RNC. His judgment was called into question earlier this week when he unveiled an ill-conceived trek through one of his former employer’s hallowed classics, that being “Station to Station” by David Bowie.
Beyond it simply being a musically ambitious and presumptuous choice (would the late Mr. Bowie have wanted his music played at this event?), there are other concerns that should have sent up a few red flags. Instead of dusting off something comparatively innocuous like, say, “Let’s Dance” or “Golden Years,” Smith selected a sprawling, quasi-conceptual suite from Bowie’s most notoriously troubled era, when a dabbling in fascism, the occult and massive piles of blow were the order of the Thin White Duke’s day. Suffice to say, “Station to Station” isn’t a simple pop ditty. Its clearly stated invocations of “one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth” and that “it must be the side-effects of the cocaine” might have given some pause, had they been paying closer attention. Given the tenor of the event, I’d suggest Smith’s band would have been better served by an airing of “I’m Afraid of Americans.”
More giggles were had, however, on Tuesday, when 90’s “alt.rock” hit-makers Third Eye Blind showed up to play an RNC-affiliated event … and proceeded to mock the fuck out of all present (“Raise your hand if you believe in science”) and endearingly not really play any of their hits. Now, say what you want about this somewhat notoriously dickish band and their music, but that was pretty ballsy. I generally have no problem with avowed dicks behaving like dicks towards other dicks. And with a similar nod to “Station to Station,” who at the RNC thought it was a good idea to invite a band WHOSE BIGGEST HIT IS ABOUT DOING CRYSTAL METH to their convention? Sorry, but they shoulda seen that comin’. 3EB, I salute ye.
But, oh -– the fun didn’t stop there. Loony Ben Carson was invited up to the RNC podium and wasted relatively precious little time before invoking Lucifer. Yep … right there on national television, which prompted me to speculate that said slight might cost the Trump campaign that elusive heavy metal vote.
This, in turn, got me wondering about how some other fabled right-leaning rockers might reconcile the dichotomies between their political affiliation and their art. Take, for example, the outspokenly Obama-hating Glenn Danzig of Flaming Pablum favorites, the Misfits et al. While boasting one of the most distinctive voices in punk and metal – largely devoted to crooning about monsters, necrophagia and murder -– our Glenn is a committed, Fox-watching Republican. Some might remember the enjoyably ridiculous inner sleeve of 1994’s Danzig 4 which depicted a Bill Clinton-impersonator shaking hands with a sniper who’d, evidently, just put all four members of the band in oblong, pine boxes (see below). Yeah, like Bill didn’t have bigger fish to fry, at the time.
But being the meat-n’-potatoes, blue collar Jersey Republican Glenn arguably is, how must he feel about Dr. Ben Carson taking potshots at the ol’ Lightbringer? I mean, Danzig put out a goddamn album called I Luciferi! Which infernal master do you serve, Glenn? It must be a real dilemma!
My greater suspicion is that Danzig is probably more of a Johnny Ramone-styled Republican – more defined by his disdain for the other party than for an admiration for the tenets of his own. Comparable to Danzig’s split loyalties, let’s remember, Johnny Ramone might have sworn allegiance to Reagan and Bush, but he also thought the Manson Family was pretty swell, as well.
I’m sure there’s more fun to come.
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