Tom Valcanis
Life-long politics tragic, digital marketer and writer. Articles in the Age/SMH, the Big Issue, the Spectator, and editor of alt lifestyle mag Hysteria from 2016–2020. An advocate for free speech, free markets, and small government.
National newspaper of record, the Australian, published a poll on LinkedIn entitled “Should politics be kept out of live music?”
The poll was inspired by the antics of punk rap duo Bob Vylan at Glastonbury Festival. The incident: they performed in front of a screen reading “Free Palestine: United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’”.
One half of the pair, Bobby Vylan (so original) chanted, “Alright, but have you heard this one, though? Death, death to the IDF (Israeli Defence Force)!”, and declared “Hell yeah, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be – inshallah – it will be free!”
They rightly caught flak and condemnation from anyone with half a brain.
Of course, government took it too far. The US State Department revoked their visa, and the UK police is launching a criminal investigation.
As a former music magazine editor, this was another ‘ho hum, pass the butter’ moment for me. I’ve heard stupider takes from bigger idiots.
I couldn’t care less what Bob Vylan says on stage: it’s their right to express themselves freely. It’s my right to not give them a quintillionth of a dime playing their generic electrified dog crap drill rap over Spotify. About 99 per cent of the audience probably couldn’t name either the river or the sea he referred to, anyway.
Remember all those underground punk gigs that were busted up during lockdowns?
Once upon a time, Bob Vylan supported pop-punks the Offspring. This is the same band that scolded slacker Californian teenagers for not getting jobs, told them that “free rides just don’t come along”, all while lamenting that “political correctness gets to the point where you want to move to Montana, get an electrified fence and a shotgun”, Wow, that almost sounds… *gasp!* right-wing.
What’s that? Left-wing inconsistency? Say it ain’t so.
If you’re all hot and bothered over it, I’d give it a rest. It’s all performative virtue signalling, because that’s what the alt music scene has always been. In the ’90s, metal-rap group Rage Against the Machine wore Che T-shirts and called for socialist revolution, all while cashing cheques written by super conglomerate Sony Music. In the ’70s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had maids provide them with fresh linen during their “bed-ins for peace”. I remember getting pressers telling me about the “hot new hardcore gender-nonconforming rap crew from Gadigal” and those stunning and brave PRs who’d broadcast to the world they’d be valiantly manning their MacBook Pros during “Invasion Day” in “solidarity” to the genocided First Nations. Awesome. I don’t care. Send me some cool bands to pretend I found all by myself or fuck off.
For all the ceaseless griping about ‘gatekeeping’ in alternative music, the right-thinkers always cloister together to shun the unbelievers. If I had a dollar for every time some ‘feminist vegan punk’ act mobbed up and cancelled a fellow performer for daring to say festival bills should be chosen on merit and not genitals, I could’ve avoided putting mi goreng on Afterpay during my tenure as a professional music writer.
Even when I was espousing basic bitch libertarian (maybe I am?) views like “people should be allowed to speak freely”, I was shouted down as a fossilised bigot who hates womxn and brown people. Politics is part of music, so long as we all agree all the time on everything.
Fifty years on, punk rock isn’t against the fascist regime, it’s working to create one. A homogenous sludge of establishment opinions and DEI initiatives, led by massive government-protected corporations. Remember all those underground punk gigs that were busted up during lockdowns? Me neither. Aussie punk rock darlings Amyl and the Sniffers (also big supporters of the Vylans) were paid by Dictator Dan (by way of you and me) to celebrate the artificial re-opening of society in 2021, provided all attendees were vaccinated to the hilt. Yeah! Take that… who are we giving the finger to again?
The poll was inspired by the antics of punk rap duo Bob Vylan at Glastonbury Festival.
If you’re falling over your fainting couch while clutching your pearls over definite flashes in the pan Bob Vylan, the duo cribbing the stage name of a folk singer who was born Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham, your time could be better spent elsewhere.
As OG punks Crass decried in Punk Is Dead released barely a year after the 1977 release of Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, they cried that punk “Ain’t for revolution, it’s just for cash/Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to be/Ain’t got a thing to do with you or me.” Hell, Johnny Rotten – possibly punk rock’s patient zero – is no longer considered punk rock because he supported the presidency of Donald Trump.
If you think Bob Vylan is going to inspire a mass yoof uprising, you probably think pro wrestling is 100 per cent real too. If Bobby and Bobbie (yes, those are their names) could make just as much money shouting “Death to the Fed!” they’d gladly chant it. In music, politics is provocative and pushes $60 T-shirts. So, in it stays.
In the end, it’s just music, dude. Here’s another quote, this time by prolific guitar genius Devin Townsend to hammer home the point: “Just shut your face and take a seat because after all you’re just talking meat, and music? Well, that’s just entertainment, folks!”
This article was originally published by Liberty Itch.
