Rockist Git Frank Turner and the horror of the live version of "I Still Believe"

libertarian mourns passing of continuous parliamentary history

Libertarian is a wanker shockah.

think you need to read his quotes in an authentic sloaney bray to get the full flavour

just saw that quote on Facebook, assume it's doing the rounds there and elsewhere

I am frustratingly sure I have a punk zine from c. 1998 with a column/letter (same difference tbh) in which teenage Frank drips with leftist invective - may look again this evening

The fun doesn't stop there:

http://www.huckmagazine.com/features/frank-turner-interview-short-stories/

think you need to read his quotes in an authentic sloaney bray to get the full flavour

I also imagine him hollering "HEAR YE, HEAR YE" before each of his responses.

Guardian summary. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/sep/04/frank-turner-right-wing

God to think I had to explain to a group of people just how odious this vom-inducer is the other day...

I'd barely heard of him before the 'lympix opening ceremony, and thought he seemed pretty innocuous there. But now, what a monstrous cockfarmer.

is this like Weller's we're all voting conservative of old?

Even more odious, I'd say.

In that Turner seems like an even less liable chap.

Likeable

xps depends, did people take til about 1980 to notice he said it?

aw I had a lawyer joke all cued up and ready to go

Weller made one comment, primarily as a wind-up - Turner talks about this at length and reads Hayek. It's up to you which you find more odious. Personally, I can't stand anyone who whiffs of Atlas Shrugged so I'd take Weller's old school trolling any day.

I'd barely heard of him before the 'lympix opening ceremony, and thought he seemed pretty innocuous there.

there was nothing innocuous about that shit

Just found out he went to the LSE. Guess he'd have been in the same year as me. There's an incredibly strong, incredibly odd, libertarian vibe to the study body that, by and large, isn't shared by the staff. It's the only university i'm aware of that has a Hayek society. Might explain where some of this comes from more than Eton.

Browsing on a music messageboard earlier today, I came across a thread devoted to Frank Turner, which linked to an interview he gave last year.

haha

Yeah. Last time I linked to something on ILX in public there was an anguished debate about whether this was what the world needed, though. So this time I kept it to "a music messageboard".

Was asked to write the blog by an editor, after the Twitter stuff all day. Was a little reluctant, cos it's old news, but I've never seen this stuff picked up in the mainstream before; took the MP tweeting about it for it to be worth bringing up on a blog, really. Someone from the Independent tweeted that they'd got rightwing stuff from him in an interview, but it was nothing like as extreme as the stuff in those interviews I took from. Took care to quote at length precisely so people couldn't say I was taking him out of context.

Expecting to be unable to look at my Twitter for a couple of days once the fanbase mobilise.

also paul weller was in the jam and this fuckstain is some kinda prep school fake working class Sir Punklesworth Cougar Mellencamp III who writes godawful music

ahh i didn't know it was you!

xp

countdown to a duet with Nicki Minaj starts now

Wiki reckons Turner went to Eton on a scholarship. Even though his father was an investment banker and his grandfather was chairman of British Home Stores. Which suggests he might not have needed a scholarship.

depends, maybe his father was a terrible banker

Like that matters

american libertarians are at least explicable within that country's history & tradition of anti-federalism etc, so within certain limits deserve pity as much derision

libertarians from countries other than america are peculiarly hateful

idk if i'm willing to buy that distinction but it is interesting

let's take over the thread on this useless cunt to talk about the old right

a paleoconservative congressman from idaho vomitting all over their shoes in the restroom of a hooters has more dignity than frank turner could ever even aspire to

jeez ithappens give credit where it's due, what this board needs is dozens of frank turner acolytes.

this guy is a remarkable all-time tool.

If they turn up even the most mild-mannered posters would be zinging them.

For example, the BNP are a hard left party. For example, the BNP are a hard left party. For example, the BNP are a hard left party. For example, the BNP are a hard left party.

Norman Tebbit tried a few times in the past few years to promote that line.

They should lock this guy and Bobby Gillespie in a room with a shitload of booze and record what happens.

and MIA

And Nicki Minaj.

And Hinder

frank turner would probably try to sodomize bobby gillespie with a vodka bottle

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Turner replies: http://frank-turner.com/blog/2012/09/schmolitics/

Checking his "following" list was quite good fun, BTW. James Delingpole! Toby Young! Guido Fawkes!

Turner replies: http://frank-turner.com/blog/2012/09/schmolitics/

"I don’t consider myself “right wing” either."

Right, yeah, no idea where people got this idea from, apart from you saying "I consider myself to be pretty right wing" in an interview that one time.

today has fucking sucked, actually

i cried a little bit

I wonder about people who pick up the BNP policy document and say "yes yes all that, but what are their economic policies like?", I mean, who cares?

also:

http://images.45cat.com/shakin-stevens-cry-just-a-little-bit-epic-2.jpg

Chris T-T is friends with this douche? Many sadfaces.

labelmates and I think sometimes bandmates as well

Likewise it confounds me that someone like Billy Bragg would want to associate with this guy....

It's one thing to be outspoken about politics as a musician or minor figure. Also to explicitly incorporate that message into your music under the guise of a ragged "man of the people" despite this image representing roughly the antithesis of what you're all about. It's another thing entirely to write a butthurt missive that backtracks on a number of points with the excuse that you were "running your mouth" off.

Like it or not, if your name is synonymous with political music*, and you go around posing as a grassroots freedom-fighting philanthropist**, and then you start spouting idiotic nonsense explicitly denoting your neolibertarian rightwing allegiances (whilst hypocritically slagging off Blair's regime which has more in common with your fucked up viewpoint than you seem to give it credit for)***, don't expect any sympathy from anyone who might have once thought you were actually a decent, well informed, benevolent chap who makes decent music****. Crying it off and saying your music isn't supposed to be political and you aren't rightwing and you weren't thinking properly when you said that stuff about the BNP is an even bigger load of toss.

*which it is
**which you do
***which you did
****which you aren't and never have been.

tbf it took dedicated shit-talkers who sit on the internet all day nearly three years to discover a smoking gun wrt this guy's political leanings, so I'm not sure what intimate knowledge you expect Billy Bragg to have