We're gonna Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock with the ROCK!

[vovat]

I'm sure we all know that rock music is an invention of the Devil. After all, Frank Zappa and David Bowie said so. "Their goal, through constant repetition, is to fill the minds of the young with perverted sex, hatred, rebellion and drugs." Actually, if I wanted "constant repetition," I'd listen to Christian music. Oh, wait. That's bad, too. Also, kids who learn that Santa Claus isn't real go on to become mass murderers.

I was considering saying something else on these, but I think they speak for themselves. I do want to mention, however, that this article says much the same thing as a piece of paper someone handed me on the street in New York several years ago. These lists of dead rock stars usually seem rather out of date, but at least Jack Chick (or whoever actually wrote the article) gives a few examples from the past twenty years (about as recent as you can expect someone like him to get), including "Kirt Kobain" [sic] and Freddie Mercury. What I love is how people who cite such information apparently think they're listing a random sample of rock musicians.

Wow, it's August already. That means winter is just around the corner, doesn't it? Stupid winter. (Yeah, I know we have fall first, but considering how quickly the summer has been passing, I can't expect the fall to be much different.)

Comments

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

Sadly, Chick cherry-picked the quote from Bowie (from a 1976 Rolling Stone interview):

"Rock & roll has been really bringing me down lately. It's in great danger of becoming an immobile, sterile fascist that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media. It rules a level of thought and clarity of intelligence that you'll never raise above. You don't have a fucking chance to hear Beethoven on any radio station anymore. You've got to listen to the O'Jays. I mean, disco music is great. I used disco to get my first Number One single ["Fame"] but it's an escapist's way out. It's musical soma. Rock & roll too-it will occupy and destroy you that way. It lets in lower elements and shadows that I don't think are necessary. Rock has always been the devil's music. You can't convince me that it isn't."

First of all, the man was on a LOT of drugs during this time. But, more importantly, he was wrestling with who we wanted to be versus who the music industry wanted him to be. Bowie was (is?) a student of the blues and any hardcore blues man will tell you that his musical ability comes from the devil -- it's part of the scene. Besides, the man has always made a habit of being outrageous; this interview was no exception.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

You mean a fundamentalist Christian took a quote out of context to make a point that couldn't be proven through actual examples? I'm shocked! :P

Seriously, I've frequently seen this same tactic used with evolutionary biology, where someone will pull out some out-of-context quote and use it as proof that Stephen Jay Gould secretly admitted evolution was a crock (not to be confused with C-rock {g}), or something like that. Not to mention all of their out-of-context Bible passages.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Vindication! Hah, I knew there was a good reason not to ruin the Santa Claus thing!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Considering how many other people I've heard pinpointing the exact moment when they stopped believing in Santa, I really can't recall for sure whether I ever did believe. But then, I think I also was able to grasp fairly early on the idea that a Story is quite different from a Lie, and that Santa is clearly the former. That's not to say that my overactive imagination didn't work against me at times (like when I used to be afraid that kidnappers were disguising themselves as my parents), but I can't recall having any serious problems with finding out my parents were playing Tooth Fairy.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

That's freaky, I could have written your response... INCLUDING the part about kidnappers disguised as my parents... horray, imaginative kids!

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot that I have stuff to add to the Rock is Evil discussion too... I mean besides my obvious hypocracy of being a devout Christian AND a rock fanatic. One thing I have never gotten about anything that slams a genre across the board, even and including like experiments that determine plants grow better listening to classical music than rock, is how much of a broad sampling of each genre are you really discussing? Is there a difference between hard-core punk and orchestral rock? What about baroque, romantic, or modern symphonic music? And if you want to go into the moral judgements, is "All You Need is Love" more evil than "Night on Bald Mountain"? Is "Give Peace a Chance" more anarchic than "Rite of Spring"? Some day I want to do the plant-growing experiment with the most beautiful rock music I can find up against the ugliest classical music!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, Chick clearly expresses an old fogey reaction to rock music (or any newfangled style of music, "newfangled" here meaning "introduced after the person talking about it turned twenty") when he has Lew Siffer (get it? :P) say, "Everyone loves it because it all sounds the same." Yeah, I've never been able to tell the difference between Elvis and Black Sabbath, either. :P

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Rock music will give you AIDS just by listening and spontaneously fill your bloodstream with copious amounts of illicit drugs. There is nothing you can do to stop it, except to NEVER listen to rock or play in a band. Fill your ears with cottonballs lest the sounds of MTV and popular radio accidentally waft in your direction, removing them only to listen to the word of the Lord. Also, you may be able to listen to Gospel.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Also, you may be able to listen to Gospel.

But not when Elvis is singing it, because he's the Devil in disguise.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Goodness gracious. If you even think about listening to Elvis, you might already be too far gone for salvation. THE HIPS, THE GYRATING SINNING LUSTFUL HIPS.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hips were an invention of the Devil! Before the Fall, Adam and Eve's ribs were perched directly on top of their legs. It's in the Bible, people! Right around the part where it says people in the antediluvian days hitched dinosaurs to their carts, and Nimrod came up with the Theory of Evolution.

And Don is into vampirism

[travspence.livejournal.com]

That anti-gay marriage slam comes out of nowhere in that track.

The hell?

Re: And Don is into vampirism

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Isn't it obvious that homosexuality, vampirism, rock music, sexually transmitted diseases, evolution, Catholicism, and Islam are all interrelated? After all, they were all invented by Satan!

[revme.livejournal.com]

I like this part:
Glenn Frey of THEEAGLES: "I'm in rock music for the sex and narcotics."

THEEAGLES!

Also, man, who would friggin' bang Glenn Frey? Jeezus.

I liked that I saw one of those things from another site and was actually pretty impressed on their Big Toteboard Of Dead Rock Stars they included Snakefinger! Yaay!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yes, THEEAGLES and THEROLLINGSTONES are important enough to be referred to in all capital letters. And, uh, no spaces.