Covidiots in music

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."

Lol

I keep waiting for Billy Corgan to show up on this thread.

https://tapeop.com/interviews/136/lee-scratch-perry/

i mean...read it for yourself...it just really puts me off when there's this level of emperor's new clothes with how people talk about him - for example the end of the article which tries to make it seem like it was something more than just a disaster

I left feeling blessed to have interacted with Lee, but was also a bit mystified by what had just happened. It became obvious quite quickly that my list of thoughtful questions were no longer relevant. So much of what Lee "Scratch" Perry does is improvise. He reads the room, feels the spirit, and accepts divine intervention. I spent years studying and playing jazz and improvising; I just didn't realize that these skills would be expected of me in an interview one day. This was like stepping on stage with John Coltrane, or into the ring with Muhammad Ali. All I could think was, "Pay attention and listen."

xpost so he can tell you that you hurt him deep in his heart?

god that is a great Ornette quote

I also interviewed Scratch Perry, and it was such a disaster that the magazine I was working for didn't run it.

On the other hand, I got blisteringly high with Lee Scratch Perry, so on top of the time I smoked a blunt with George Clinton and his band (among some others in a large circle), I feel somewhat blessed.

xpost Very akin to some Miles Davis aphorisms.

On the other hand, I got blisteringly high with Lee Scratch Perry, so on top of the time I smoked a blunt with George Clinton and his band (among some others in a large circle), I feel somewhat blessed.

I feel very lucky that in almost 25 years of doing this I've never been confronted with the option to get high with an artist. I don't drink or do drugs, so my big fear has always been that turning it down would sour an otherwise productive interaction.

I once interviewed Johnny Depp in a room with a few other journalists. He hand-rolled a (tobacco) cigarette and offered it up, but only one person was a smoker and iirc didn't want to get in trouble for flouting no-smoking rules like only famous people can do.

A striking number of Nick Cave fans would appear to be Covidiots - https://www.facebook.com/nickcaveandthebadseeds/photos/a.10150398421173034/10157762400883034/?type=3

I only read a few screens from 1000+ responses but I was pleasantly surprised how few there were.

ok. i must have had the bad luck of hitting the seam full of russian nick cave fans with their plandemic theories telling everyone we are being enslaved by our govts.

this was a good one - , it is a pretext or rather an excuse to limit our freedom. The point is to help our immune system by cuttiing down on carbohydrates , introducing fasting and herbs to our daily diet. In my working environment there have been 15 cases of corona and believe me I did not contact the virus thanks to my healthy lifestyle. Why don't our governments focus on this aspect instead?

Unperson, that seems like a reasonable concern, particularly given the proclivities of a lot of jazz musicians.

In the case of Scratch Perry, it was sort of difficult to not be high, because the show was in San Francisco, and the entire venue was like one big hotbox from the time I walked in until the time I left.

The dude from Trapt seems to be all kinds of idiot (with a covid component): https://www.altpress.com/news/trapt-twitter-account-suspended/

Yeah, iirc, Trapt actually played an unmasked show this year. Granted it was to an audience of 15, apparently, but still.

I think the covidiocy pales in comparison to the defending of rape and the proud boys shit

only 15 people went to the concert but every one of them started an ICU bed shortage

Oh absolutely, there are no shortage of reasons to hate Trapt. They really went all in on the hate this year.

Some people now thinking Dan Snaith is a covidiot judging from the replies

I feel so sorry for Margaret Keenan - the 91 year old woman who got the vaccine today. Completely unaware she's just been sterilised by Bill Gates.

— Caribou (@caribouband) December 8, 2020

Some people now thinking Dan Snaith is a covidiot judging from the replies

🐦[I feel so sorry for Margaret Keenan - the 91 year old woman who got the vaccine today. Completely unaware she’s just been sterilised by Bill Gates.
— Caribou (@caribouband) December 8, 2020🕸]🐦

Yeah, that dry humor does not work at all in the age of rabid online idiots.

how do you not get that's a joke

*I* get that it's a joke. But I can also see how someone who doesn't really know Snaith well at all could see that tweet and think it was straight-faced while scrolling through dozens of other batshit, MAGA driven conspiracy theories that litter that hellscape.

Some rabid online idiot, you said it.

oh sorry I meant "how does one not get," not you, obv.

No worries, I just meant to say that I think this dry humor rarely scans as intended on Twitter in 2020.

Good job I'm not on Twitter I think.

Oh yes, definitely a good job. No matter how much time I spend curating my list of follows, this stuff gets amplified by every corner and feels inescapable.