Covidiots in music

Rita Rita Rita. Saturday was Albanian Independence Day too!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/30/enemies-of-the-sheeple-why-do-pop-stars-fall-for-conspiracy-theories

30+ people at Rita's Party, £10k fine per head for breaking lockdown - you do the math! That's £3m or more for Serco's shareholders, after they get awarded the vaccine rollout and hire some teenagers to jab some needles around in an Asda car park somewhere.

Er, hate to be the math pedant here, but that's £300,000 fine, not £3m. Still.

wish I had £10k so I could say "fuck the rules" and it not be a significant issue to me.

I mean, I wouldn't because I'm not an utter arsehole, but it's good to see the different-rules-for-rich-people play out again

Seriously, like a lot of other fines and fiscal punishments, it needs to be on a sliding scale. I'm sure the rich would find ways around that too though.

I did say you do the math, not me.

Maths.

sometime-user DL's guardian piece linked above is a hurried half-baked nothing, really -- a dozen ilxors could have written a better i think

Some musicians are "autodidacts, attracted to the juicy secret knowledge that you won’t get from the mainstream media, while lacking the analytical tools necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff."

he may not exactly mean this implication (a good sub shd have challenged him on it!) but the "mainstream media" also largely lacks "the analytical tools necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff", or at any rate too often doesn't bother to use it. musicians as a counter-media thrive bcz the institution they're countering -- wich they have dozens of valid reasons to despise -- does its job fitfully at best, and this is a far more pertinent reason for the rise of the problem than e.g. weed or stubbornness ffs lol

I think the mainstream media has been good about delivering & reinforcing accurate COVID information, though.

ok then

Surely the important question is how Rita Ora has got any money

Also I note briefly in passing that sensible DL managed a dig at the hated left

tbf, if he'd just written "a lot of musicians are thick as shit" I don't think he would have made the minimum wordcount

it would still have required "as are a lot of journalists" tagged on

feel like Immortal Technique might have some interesting "opinions" on COVID.

but i haven't looked yet

I mean, I'd definitely be up for an "everyone is a fukken idiot, why do you think musicians would be exceptions" rant

Yeah - does the % of musicians noted ITT exceed the % of covidiots in society at large?

think the mainstream media has been good about delivering & reinforcing accurate COVID information, though.

Are there any parts of the mainstream UK media that you think have done a lesser job than others?

?

Rita Ora apologizes:
It was a spur of the moment decision made with the misguided view that we were coming out of lockdown and this would be OK.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/30/rita-ora-throws-birthday-party-london-restaurant-covid-lockdown

It was a spur of the moment meal booked in a restaurant for 30 people several days before lockdown ended, but I thought I'd get away with it more likely

feel like Immortal Technique might have some interesting "opinions" on COVID.

but i haven't looked yet

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Monday, November 30, 2020 11:30 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

feels like a lock...been wondering about Lord Jamar and KRS-One as well

ha of course this guy

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/08/tech-n9ne-coronavirus-concert-ozarks/

Tech bums me out, always seemed like he had a head on his shoulders but I didn't pay close enough attention.

?

mark and Dorian both see, for different implied reasons, failures of the UK's mainstream media as being a factor in lesserly-intellectual* citizens like Ian Brown and the Fairbrass Brothers reaching unscientific and conspiracy-minded conclusions about COVID. You disagree, because the mainstream media has been good about delivering these messages. I wonder if you're certain it's consistent at that level, or if there might be a weak point or two here and there, where these musicians might be getting their info.

*broad though their other talents might be

Sammy Hagar

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 17, 2020 6:43 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Today's David Lee Roth cartoon, seemingly in response to Hagar's non-socially-distanced Thanksgiving dinner? I'm not entirely sure - Roth's sense of humor is pretty weird.

#SoggyBottom #DLR #DavidLeeRoth #DiamondDave pic.twitter.com/zZ4Q2ZRHgh

— David Lee Roth (@DavidLeeRoth) November 30, 2020

xp Of course I'm happy to consider contrary viewpoints/facts, though I can't respond to arguments that are merely "implied."

Hannan's "you're really not going to die from the Coronavirus" and "it's time to start loosening the lockdown" takes (the latter first fired off on April 12!) are published in The Telegraph

And are musicians known to follow this guy's editorials?

Here's the current non-editorial coverage: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/uk-coronavirus-lockdown/

Do you think "stay home folks, 12,330 new cases were recorded yesterday and we have the highest death rates in Europe, here's a scientist" messaging would be unduly alarmist, and that "go to Cornwall to drink" and "masks are dangerous" and "eating one (1) scotch egg in public protects you from the virus" and "Matt Hancock says everything's okay now, and he's a person one should absolutely trust" news stories are responsible messaging?

Hannan's "you're really not going to die from the Coronavirus" and "it's time to start loosening the lockdown"

You scared the shit out of me, I thought I was about to learn that Neil Hannon from Divine Comedy was an anti-masker

xp I clicked on the Scotch egg article, and it doesn't seem to say what you say it says, but I'm not a subscriber so can't read further.

(Also apologies if I'm not parsing your coyly interrogative rhetorical moves correctly.)

imo reasonable public health messaging would frame things as "Rishi's plans to have you eat and drink and socialise indoors are all bad and will spread the virus, as demonstrated by a) science b) this diagram of droplets, c) them doing so previously. NB Tim Martin is a sociopath and Sunak literally does not know what a pub looks like inside or out," not as "here's a quirky li'l feature of the new guidelines! (no content about virus exists in article at all)"

that david lee roth cartoon is a lot

Lee Scratch Perry

Probably the least surprising covidiot yet.

In a high risk group too, the lad wants to be careful.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55213784

there was a Scratch Perry interview in the recording magazine Tape Op and it was really depressing to me, complete gibberish.

and not even like eccentric or in a surreal way insightful, like he's just a guy muttering on a park bench now

I will continue to have faith in you, Rita:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50GQjUZ4P3M

(it was always about this remix tho)

xp

I saw Lee Scratch Perry nearly 20 years ago and he was having the audience do call-and-response conspiracy theory chanting, this is just what he's always been like I guess, part of the package, like with Immortal Technique.

I interviewed Scratch several years back and it was a similar mishmash of coherence, gibberish, and slang (some I would guess was invented, which came across as more gibberish). That's just his vibe. He's also 84 now.

I interviewed Scratch several years back and it was a similar mishmash of coherence, gibberish, and slang

TBF, this was my experience interviewing Ornette Coleman, minus the made-up slang. Years later I talked to one of his backing musicians and he explained that Ornette would happily talk concretely about music all day long...to another musician, but when he talked to journalists he slid into "philosopher mode" and stayed there.

I put him on in concert around 15 years and had exactly the same experience - mishmash of coherence, gibberish, and slang

But, at one point in the evening I overheard him talking to his wife and he was speaking very coherently with no gibberish or slang, so who knows?

Rita Ora wins the 2020 award for least sincere apology (twice!).

Even Ornette's most obscure interviews often have some insightful gems, but I wouldn't have necessarily wanted to be the interviewer.

Wow, unperson, that makes total sense.

Wow, unperson, that makes total sense.

A couple of years before the interview, I saw him walking through midtown Manhattan and struck up a conversation at a stoplight. His first question to me was, do you play an instrument? I said no, that I had played the trumpet for a little while but had given it up to stick with writing. His reply was, "You should have stuck with it, because you can make the same mistakes either way."