Eric Clapton stands by Enoch Powell

i couldn't quite work out why clapton was on the cover of a newsstand publication in the 04 == who gives a shit about clapton?!?

-- ENRQ (miltonpinsk...), April 26th, 2004.

hence my slamming ead against monitor.

the observer mm has had chris blue writing for it - arguably the biggest imbecile to turn on a word processor. it is bad.

marcello working 4 time out is a good thing. he will make it better, as i saad, by a long fucking chalk, without even having to metaphorically get out of bed. my experiences with it, not good, though.

i wonder whether there is any connection between the current return to the headlines of all these pivotal moments in the creation of the cultural side of the New Right - Clapton's comments, the announcement today that HBO are to make a film of the Stones' 1967 drug busts and the events that followed (personally i reckon Rees-Mogg defended them when he wasn't expected to mainly because he didn't have the deep and profound cultural Americoscepticism of many other conservatives of his generation and ilk, cf his comments on Bush and Iraq), BBC4 showing the Scorsese documentary on the influence of the blues on mainly southern middle-class Brits - and the fact that we are a week away from the 25th anniversary of Thatcher's election.

Yeah, I was rather irritated to see Uncut filled with nearly 30 pages IIRC on the man... Ironically, the same day I read the Uncut, I was going through some very old Q's (dreadful magazine, generally speaking) in the house and, flicking through, chanced upon an interview with Phil Collins from 1995 or 1996 in which Collins referred to a friendship with Clapton and IIRC said they'd both been talking about Powell supportively. Was a bizare coincidence to come upon this on the same day, and it has ever more turned me against Clapton; whose own music has always bored me anyway.

1. It's really kinda tatty to misrepresent private conversation between us in a public forum. When I realised that you - a regular freelance contributor to Uncut - had been slagging off the magazine and, at one point, me by name, called you immediately. Responding to the somewhat self-dramatising thing you'd said about 'maybe my time at Uncut is coming to an end', I said: "Marcello, when you're good, I really like your writing. However, the swiftest way to 'end your time at Uncut' is to continue post unprofessional shit about the mag and me on messageboards.' What was it you posted: "He tried it and I told him not to." Oh, please. Grow up man.

2. As I later wrote to you, you've had a substantial amount of work from me, including your first Album & Reissue of the month. It seems sad that you're so unconcerned about the end of a relationship with the first publication to give you print work.

3. I asked you to review the Bay City Rollers reissues because, as I told you, I felt you were one of the few writers who could provide some kind of insight and perspective without being cattily dismissive. That's hardly an 'indignity.'

4. Uncut isn't perfect. We exist in the marketplace, with all the vitiated imperatives that implies.

5. You also need to understand that if you intend to work in anyway in print media, you will have to follow a bassline of professionalism: one of the things this means is that if your editor asks you to tweak a line, you don't throw your toys out of the pram. Often it means that they're actually bothering to engage with your work, which is actually a compliment.

6. You also need to realise that Time Out and Uncut are very different magazines, and that if they are willing to run your copy unchanged, that may be for a whole range of reasons, and not simply because they see it as tablets of stone. I will be interested to see whether you're still as enamoured of TO in 6 months time; remember, 6 months ago, you were very happy to be working for Uncut.

7. I mailed you and said the door was still open here, but that you had to reply. You have chosen instead to continue this brittle carping. It is your choice that Uncut's reviews section is no longer home to your occasionally glorious subversion. I think that's a shame.

David

(btw, uncut was not the first publication to offer me work)

i like what robin has to say upthread in regard to clapton and, much more so, i would say, jagger

It speaks volumes, too, that you're unable to respond to the many positive points in my original post.

Oh, well, that would seem to be that.

Apologies to everyone else for this dreary exchange. It has depressed me hugely.

David

He said it from of Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett, he claims to wind them up - what with him being a real hardcore punker and all (chortle). To her eternal credit, Bonnie Bramlett walloped the little weasel.

He said it in front of Stephen Stills...

(Could someone with a UK law degree give some legal perspective on this on the moderator board?)

(oops xpost)

if his comment wasnt well received, he would never have apologised.

wasn't it 'blind, ignorant nigger'?

as for the carlin/uncut dust-up.....Jesus H.Clapton.

Wait they asked HIM to tweak the line and he got pissed off?

!!!

As someone with some legal training I can confirm that this is every bit as valid as most of Marcello's opinions.

However, he is by no means racist.

http://www.clarence.com/contents/musica/speciali/030527him/images/intro.jpg

Wasn't he also shitfaced when he said it? Not that that excuses it, of course, but I'd put it nearer to Bowie's coked-up nazi chic folly than Clapton's unapologetic Powell support.

He was the first musician to drop the N-bomb on a UK top 10 single as well, remember ("Oliver's Army").

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/eric_claptons_disgusting_racist_tirade

refers to this thread in the article.

were those quotes in that article reported at the time?

Looks that way, as Rock Against Racism was formed, at least in part, in response to them:

Originally conceived as a one-off concert with a message against racism, Rock Against Racism was founded in 1976 by Red Saunders, Roger Huddle and others. According to Huddle, "it remained just an idea until August 1976" when Eric Clapton made a drunken declaration of support for former Conservative minister Enoch Powell (known for his anti-immigration Rivers of Blood speech) at a concert in Birmingham.[2] Clapton told the crowd that England had "become overcrowded" and that they should vote for Powell to stop Britain from becoming "a black colony". He also told the audience that Britain should "get the foreigners out, get the wogs out, get the coons out", and then he repeatedly shouted the National Front slogan "Keep Britain White".[3][4]

Huddle, Saunders and two members of Kartoon Klowns responded by writing a letter to NME expressing their opposition to Clapton's comments, which they claimed were "all the more disgusting because he had his first hit with a cover of reggae star Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" ... Come on Eric... Own up. Half your music is black. Who shot the Sheriff, Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you!". At the end of the letter, they called for people to help form a movement called Rock Against Racism, and they report that they received hundreds of replies.[2]