Covidiots in music

Here's one that really hurts for me: Joseph Arthur. Someone I always put on a pedestal and considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time.

A year ago he already occasionally raised questions regarding measures such as lockdowns and masks, commented against Fauci and Gates, sympathized with conspiracy theories. Over the last few months it's gotten so much worse, as he (while saying he's not anti-vax in general) believes people are pressured via media propaganda into taken experimental bad vaccines. His own social media accounts feature several sessions each day of unloading 'information' in validation of his stance (generally: misinformation, or uncorroborated disputed statements from doctors or whatnot). He shared and supported comments from Ian Brown and Eric Clapton. He's been going on about how anything other than the main narrative is being silenced and how people deciding not to get the vaccine are 'segregated'.
The nature of the statements & the sources hint at alt-right roots, even qanon, which is especially disappointing as he wrote a heavy anti-Trump/Trump supporters song during the US presidential campaigns 6 years ago. It's clear that he used to be different. He himself said a while ago that he turned 'right' as he came to experience the 'left' trying to put limits on freedom. Many fans and even friends of his are alienated by his ways of late, I also had to unfollow his social media as it got too extreme.

Among other collaborations, he's been in a band with Jeff Ament (as RNDM), in another with Peter Buck (as Arthur Buck), one more with Dhani Harrison and Ben Harper (Fistful of Mercy). I wonder if all of those will be able to discern professional work from politics/worldview, if bridges are being burned in silence or if anyone will still speak up against this BS or smack him on the head or whatever.
I personally hope that if I give it some distance, I may eventually want to listen to his old work again & enjoy it as I used to, as he really seems to have become a different person over the past few years.

Re the plague rave in Zanzibar.

How much difference is there between that and Aaron Ramsey flying out to play in Baku?

Agreed on Joseph Arthur. Well-articulated. Also unsubbed from his social media. Love his music and his odd artwork, but not his recent takes.

How much difference is there between that and Aaron Ramsey flying out to play in Baku?

Azerbaijan appears not to be denying that COVID exists, and to be requiring both proof of vaccination and a negative test for foreigners to enter, so it's different on that account. How big were the gigs this guy was playing, and were they indoors or outdoors, with assigned/distanced seating or open?

30,000 and outdoors. Good point on the vaccine requirement

Some fans turn against Foo Fighters after hearing concert-goers need proof of vaccination

― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Saturday, June 12, 2021 3:30 PM (one week ago)

turns out they welcomed covidiots who hold super-spreader events to this, just not in the audience

Fully vaccinated… Gets you into a concert… To see the Foo Fighters… And David Chapelle sing

Creep pic.twitter.com/XxCqVgorpO

— ⚡️✨🌟💥⭐️💫🔥☄️⚡️✨🌟 (@JIMrichards1010) June 21, 2021

One of the two competing versions of UB40 has required their touring members to be vaccinated, so: a backing singer that you have never heard of announcing his refusal on twitter has resulted in randos yelling at the other UB40 for betraying their working class ideals.

New nominee for the most 2021 sentence yet.

What's it got to do with working class ideals though?

What does logic have to do with anti-vaxxers?

Right Said Fred are in the replies advising him to "Issue a notice of liability, their position is unlawful."


Turns out that as of Monday, the other UB40 is without a lead singer, so perhaps this guy is angling for an invitation to level up.

(having replaced the original lead singer with his big brother in 2008, the elder replacement suffered a stroke last year and retired due to ongoing ill-health this week.)

Chapelle is a Covid denier?

not a denier, but moved to another state in order to hold spreader events during lockdown, gave misinformation about testing, got a freelance photog and his child infected, crowed that anyone who was wearing masks or not attending crowded indoor events with strangers was a pissbaby (once he caught it himself and did not die), etc

Richard Ashcroft strikes again, with support from none other than Ian Brown:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/06/richard-ashcroft-quits-tramlines-festival-owing-to-its-covid-research

Nick McCabe further proving by way of contrast that he was the most based member of the Verve.

a lucky escape for ticketholders for tramlines festival

Ashcroft has a six foot sign with the words ‘natural rebel’ outside his house at all times

naturally mystified rebel

he's just been doing that bittersweet sympathy walk around the north all year breathing really hard in people's faces. PROPER LAD ROCK AND ROLL.

Despite Morrissey's views on 'Con-vid' and agreeing that restrictions to limit transmission of the virus fit the “precise description of slavery”, nevertheless these masks are available to buy at Mporium - the official #Morrissey store #MoneyChangesEverything https://t.co/ulsTaYSYVQ pic.twitter.com/Uk6HSVOTw2

— Dave Haslam (@Mr_Dave_Haslam) July 6, 2021

turns out a lot of things are exactly like slavery

Trying to think of a phrase sadder than "interview conducted by his nephew"...

"Look, you know how your Uncle Stephen gets...just go 'round and let him talk himself out, OK? Make sure he can see that the phone's recording. That'll calm him down for a few weeks so your mother can get some peace."

his nephew always does them now, I have never encountered an interviewer more creepingly fawning

Kill Uncle

I wouldn’t call it covidiocy but it seems relevant.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/at-least-180-infected-after-dutch-disco-despite-showing-covid-19-certificates-1.4611870

Richard Ashcroft strikes again, with support from none other than Ian Brown:

Right Said Fred also bigging him up. admire their graciousness generally tho

Ian Brown is now a leading epidemiologist?

apart from the non-PCR tests and the QR code copying, this is very relevant to our current reckless opening up policy:

people have been issued with vaccination certificates within a day of receiving the one-shot Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, though the manufacturer advises that protection does not take full effect until about two weeks later.

xp to the Dutch disco fiasco

Whenever I see this thread revived I assume Billy Corgan gave an interview.

the Dutch disco fiasco is simply going to become an every day fact of life across the world as things open up.

but at least we have been gifted the phrase “dutch disco fiasco”.

Sounds like a Fall album title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc7w7QlXgcE

I wonder if Aphex Twin has had any more thoughts on Covid

Not music but music-adjacent: I just read an interview with photographer/filmmaker Richard Kern where he was doing fine — not great, but not horrible — until he squatted down and left the words "all the bullshit around the COVID scamdemic" steaming on the floor right at the end.

Nothing to see here, just Anton Newcombe and Ian Brown insulting each other in Robyn Hitchcock's mentions https://t.co/c6zZxpiR4J

— Eddie Robson (@EddieRobson) July 15, 2021

Anton Newcombe: voice of reason

you are a the moron

What's more awkward, seeing two people you know fight in front of you in-person or having it play out virtually over Twitter?

(I dunno, it's just weird to see Hitchcock tagged in their insults to each other, but I don't use Twitter so maybe that's SOP?)

i don't give a fuck if you know karate

lmao

you are the original shit sniffer covid disciple big pharma puppet experiment in progress dunce repeater

My second favorite ever Lollapalooza performance (behind Daft Punk, natch) was watching Brian Jonestown Massacre and hearing Anton just relentlessly mock and ridicule Dashboard Confessional when the sound from their set across the park kept bleeding over between songs. Anton is an asshole, but that was highly entertaining.

YOU are the original shit sniffer covid disciple big pharma puppet experiment in progress dunce repeater wreckhead trust fund junkie runaway

I am bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher: in other words, sucker, there is no other.

We are not the same. Wanna kiss myself.

you are a the moron

― things repeat forever and there never is a remedy (Austin), Thursday, July 15, 2021 1:29 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

mario voice

Ah yes

Eric Clapton said he would cancel any shows if the venue requires attendees prove they are vaccinated against Covid-19. https://t.co/ByUi9lLG2V

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 21, 2021

That's like threatening to not take a shit in someone's front lawn.

My racist bluesman is an antivaxxer?

Clapton reminds me of Denis Leary's Elvis joke. Had Clapton died at 27 in 1972 (and he nearly did thanks to his heroin addiction), it would've been seen as an awful human tragedy that left behind an impeccable body of work. There's no romanticizing those 49 extra years, that's for sure.