Covidiots in music

not really

he might well be, list is depressing enough already

M.I.A.

― hey, trust the fungus! (pomenitul), Thursday, September 17, 2020 10:39 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

Really?

Technically she's an anti-vaxxer, but she revealed it in reaction to the pandemic. Counts in my book.

Julian Cope? Really? That one makes me sad

Brown and Gallagher have always been fucking chavs, although the former has written some great songs at least

Vanilla Ice

M.I.A. is just the worst. She practically wanted a parade for getting an MBE, which seemed to nullify everything she once appeared to stand for

Tech N9ne

Kaitlyn Arelia Smith is anti-vaxx, so she should possibly go here, too

I’m just gonna say Kid Rock

Tom MacDonald

Mike Stock

Tbf there are different tiers of covidiocy. Each is characterized by a particular fixation: face masks, vaccines, 5G, microchips, etc.

― hey, trust the fungus! (pomenitul),

Aphex Twin said we were a police state. I think that puts him ahead of noel gallagher refusing to wear a mask. It puts him in the ian brown category,

https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/72357

He was always a low level 9/11 truther but this was still a kick in the nuts

https://www.coronavirusworldnews.com/coronavirus-uk-the-thes-matt-johnson-spreads-bill-gates-covid-19-conspiracy-theory/

All weed-heads aren't they? Not judging just saying.

It's not easy to think outside of the hotbox.

xxxp RDJ also posted a bunch of covid truther links to his soundcloud when he uploaded that batch of tracks (I assumed that he uploaded them mainly to draw eyes to the links). Think he later removed the links.

what did Julian Cope do?

this tweet suggests he's being responsible but it's old

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Julian Cope has – with great sadness – felt obliged to cancel the remaining five dates of his Winter 2020 tour. pic.twitter.com/o4q6EWumdn

— Julian Cope (@JulianHCope) March 16, 2020

Cope hasn't done anything. A poster decided to post his name as a 'joke'

To no great surprise, Ted Nugent

"covidiots"? ay ay ay

Nobody's mentioned Van Morrison yet?

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/van-morrison-fight-the-covid-19-pseudoscience-and-speak-up-1.4338343

Chuck D was posting conspiracy-flavored stuff a few months back; don’t know what his current line is.

Wiley

Yes Ivan, let’s bring back all those audiences that you clearly relish playing for any other time

Van Morrison has always had a few screws loose, unfortunately

Timely:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/entertainment-arts-54194498"> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/entertainment-arts-54194498

Sir Van Morrison has accused the government of "taking our freedom" in three new songs that protest against the coronavirus lockdown.

In the lyrics, he claims scientists are "making up crooked facts" to justify measures that "enslave" the population.

"The new normal, is not normal," he sings. "We were born to be free".

Oops, fucked up that link:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54194498"> https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54194498

Boomers gonna boomer

got nothing to do with being a boomer

yeah, almost all of these people are Generation X, not boomers

The list has a lot of people who have been known to be kind of gullible fools for some time, or people who generally have a reputation for ~not being very bright~ (Gallagher and Brown in particular) - but I've been struggling with my inner fanboy over the RDJ thing for some time, since he resurfaced around the time of Syro and started up with various truther discourse - so the covid stuff is not a surprise, but it's still v v depressing.

There are people where it kinda goes with their schtick, but with RDJ, I really wanna grab him by the shoulders and go "you are actually *smarter* than this?" He's bright, he's sciencey, he was educated, in that he got halfway to a degree in electrical engineering, this man is not a fool?

But I guess that's sometimes the thing with conspiracy thinking, that conspiracies can *be* especially flattering to people who have experienced being brighter than most people around them, (not hard in the music industry!) and this is one of those stereotypes I hate reinforcing, but Autists, especially ones with Aspergers, like RDJ, in particular are very susceptible to it - that if you are constantly noticing weird shit that neurotypicals just *don't*, that it leaves you very susceptible to believing that you have access to special truths that neurotypicals don't or can't see.

And for a conspiracy brainloop to really take hold, it's like it has to piggyback on something you already care a LOT about. (Like how anti-trans ideology can canibalise both feminist activism AND virulently anti-feminist activism, because these are issues that people care about very deeply!)

RDJ has always had a very serious anti-authoritarian streak. And this idea that 'Britain is a police state' - the thing is, there are many ways in which Britain already *is* very like a police state. All the jokes about 'rainy fascism island' are getting at something - the abuse of Stop and Search, the suppression of protest, the absolute impunity of the police to murder citizens with no repercussions, the wholesale deportation of the Windrush generation, etc. etc. etc. - but his established anti-authoritarian special interest doesn't seem to fixate on those genuine abuses. It leaps sideways onto something tangential which affects him (he can't leave his house) and instead of landing on something with a basis in fact (the Tory government is absolutely mishandling the epidemic) it leaps into 'being quarantined = oh noes here is the police state'.

Sorry to bring politics into ILM, if this was intended to just be a list thread. 'Why do people get caught up in weird conspiracy theories' is one of my long-term special interests, for obvious reasons.

you'd think maybe the group of absolute foolish poltroons (who most of you'd cross a road to avoid) who make up th C-19 truther gang might make RJD pause for thought somewhat? I find it unforgivable that ppl who are otherwise silent about genuine human rights abuses committed by the British state are jumping on the Icke bandwagon ffs!

Wiley's rep is so done in now he could become the official PIE spokesperson and it wouldn't be newsworthy!

Van Morrison already was affiliated with PIE as evidenced in his passive pedophilia song, Cypress Avenue!

maybe one for the PaedIdiots in Music thread where lots of legends of the delta blues who otherwise are treated with upmost reverence get brutally cancelled!

Is wealth and age the main factor (for musicians)?

I think maybe isolation from people who would expose them to better ideas if a factor? There's definitely a bubble factor going on.

I don't know! It's speculation.

I think that maybe ~having a self image as a rebel and anti-authority figure~ is an inclination. Mistrust of official sources, etc.

if they knew people who would ridicule/rip the piss out of them, or even calmly reason with them it might just make them dig in deeper.

Is wealth and age the main factor (for musicians)?

List seems pretty multi-generational to me, tho I don't think I've seen any new/relevant artists take this stance yet.

feel like there are a lot of people out there who are like this, it's just that musicians are asked their opinions more often, or have a wider audience when expressing them on twitter

I only skimmed it but Aphex's take seemed more nuanced that the usual shit (I think a member of his family actually died of covid?) It was more 'this is serious but we are also at risk of stumbling into even more of an authoritarian police state'.

OTOH Aphex has regularly been full of shit and I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be here as well.

Noel Gallagher is the amusing one because his every pronouncement these days reveals him to be less intelligent than his brother (whose approach has been basically 'ffs just wear a mask').

Aphex is a notorious wind up merchant and a massive stoner, which might be a factor.

RDJ's father died recently (apparently not from Covid) so he is probably in a weird place.

I think your description of his take is pretty (overly) charitable, compared with what was screengrabbed and posted on Reddit (after being removed) but this is what is still up on his Soundcloud:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/15/the-reaction-of-the-left-to-lockdown/

John Squire (as opposed to Brown) seems to also be pro-mask.

he passed the eleven-plus and attended a grammar school, so probably a bit brighter than the gang of chimpanzees he hung out with!

Yeah OK I only read an RA report on what Aphex posted, the original is pretty much what you'd expect and yeah I was definitely being charitable.

I’d run a mile in case he coughed on me ooooohhhhh

— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) September 18, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOHn6KurHE0

He wears masks he’s a proper little hypercondreact prob got a fancy designer 1 he’s just trying to get in on the argument he’s prob bored I would be if I was him

— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) September 18, 2020

Is it him or someone using his picture? The account is just retweets.

Yeah it isn't verified and it has a low follower count, also Later... didn't tag it in the posts last night, doesn't rule it out though.

It’s followed by The English Beat (official), if that means anything…

She [an antivax influencer I found on Youtube] drove me crazy, oooh ooh ooh

Cassandra “Qassandra” Wilson is still kind of a bummer, she’s gone full redpill though seems to have chosen to downplay it of late (while still emphasizing being a “patriot”), maybe wisely for her career. Plenty of her fans were genuinely shocked about that.

oh man I didn't know about that, she's such a rare talent, that sucks

She and Moe Tucker are the right wing musicians that bum me out the most.

+ Exene Cervenka

oh man I didn't know about that, she's such a rare talent, that sucks

Me neither! Just looked up her Twitter feed. Sweet Jesus, honestly the last thing I would’ve suspected. Ugh….

There’s an indie pop artist who was briefly incautious with her anti-BLM chatter on Instagram but I think she similarly decided to get careful, I won’t name her but it really bummed out my wife (who is a fan.)

Back to antivax artists — Summer Walker is someone whose music I love, and whose… views… I try not to pay attn to.

Pretty sceptical that Gift account is anything to do with him xps

As CAAL said, this was Later's tweet about their NYE show

Join us on NYE for another star-studded Hootenanny line-up!🎆

⭐️ @catburns
⭐️ Tom Odell
⭐️ @SELFESTEEM___
⭐️ @rachaelnvilray
⭐️ @rubyturnersoul
⭐️ @LMarshallSinger
⭐️ @realthinguk
⭐️ Andy Fairweather Low
⭐️ @GabrielleUk
⭐️ Roland Gift
⭐️ @george_ezra

Saturday, 11:30pm @BBCTwo🎉 pic.twitter.com/aCkuKtUNMO

— Later...with Jools Holland on BBC Two (@BBCLater) December 27, 2022

I checked out a few 2020/21 interviews (out of curiosity/boredom), and he solely talks about music... don't see anything relevant when I search his name plus "covid"... so if that is his account, he keeps his views pretty close to the vest.

(FWIW, I did find this health quiz from 2017: ‘Hereditaries’ can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. How you think has a direct effect on your health: winter comes and some people tell themselves they’re going to get a cold, and they do.)

well, that's a relief *returns to playing FYC's "Don't Look Back"*

Hey, suspicious minds gonna suspicion.

Meanwhile, Roland's Gifts sporadically tweeted about its personalized plaques and planters in 2012-13 before reemerging in 2019 with a retweet of Mollie Hemingway on the "Russia hoax."

She and Moe Tucker are the right wing musicians that bum me out the most.

Tucker and I used to be Facebook friends. She blocked me once I started replying to her questionable posts with factual rebuttals during the height of the pandemic.

+ Exene Cervenka

― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, January 1, 2023 9:06 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

remember watching some of her rants on twitter or youtube and she really just seems mentally unwell, it's sad

I had to look it up to refresh my memory but yes, years before Covid (or even before Trump ran for office), she was a full blown conspiracy nut for matters big and small.

I haven't followed Moe Tucker too closely outside of her music, but I was under the impression she wasn't a conspiracy nut so much as a politically right-wing extremist, with cult-like belief in libertarian ideas and also racist beliefs as well (I recall some pretty disgusting posts against Muslims). I almost want to put up a Venn diagram showing how Exene and Moe's philosophies really overlap rather than being one and the same.

It's funny/sad to read old articles about Tucker from the 80s and 90s, where the writers are at pains to paint her as an authentic, woman-of-the-people type (unlike those arty dilettantes Reed and Cale), as if working at Walmart is proof of moral virtue.

When they did that talk at the NYPL in 2009, a little of that did come out where she criticizes NYC for doing nothing to keep it more affordable, pointing out that artists living under the poverty line and who were just starting out could no longer find a place in Manhattan. Lou gently disagreed, saying there were still places like that in Brooklyn - to be fair, there were (Bushwick comes to mind), but less so now. Anyway, the whole talk is streaming somewhere on the NYPL website, and fortunately there isn't any extremist nuttery that comes pouring out.

I knew about her Tea Party stuff from 2010, but hadn’t heard anything else lately (just looked up a few recent interviews, and thankfully politics doesn’t come up).

(The main thing she rails against here is cymbals…)

mo otm about cymbals

although of course i end up ring a ding dingin on them all the time when i play

No kidding about cymbals. I'm not fussy at all about mixes or arrangements, but too much cymbal will ruin a song for me. Why put so much "SHHHHHHHHHH" in there? First Snail Mail album is very guilty of this.

Don’t tell Moe about mid- to late-80s Grateful Dead soundboard recordings

Yeah she's suffered enough

“Maureen, dear, there’s something I need to tell you about. You’re not going to like it.”

lol

Scout Niblett’s Twitter started retweeting anti-vax stuff yesterday. Possibly hacked though, lasts post before it was November 2021. OTOH she is an astrologist.

Howard Donald off the deep end …

FYI, Howard from Take That is headlining this while these are in his likes https://t.co/JWZIrVzJB6 pic.twitter.com/6BU4rhn2Gy

— dylan (@ohlookitsdylan) June 16, 2023

fucking pod people

Dropped

Pride event drops Howard Donald over Twitter likes

not from a big enough height

In a surprise to no one, Clapton's playing a benefit for RFK Jr. at someone's private home - he also recently tried to donate $5000 to his dumpster fire of a presidential campaign, but the money was returned because he legally can't donate as a non-U.S. citizen (and it's also over the limit for any individual to personally donate).