So, if Alice Cooper and Eric Clapton were in a fist fight with BG and Bono, where would you place your bet?

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Oh, Shut Up

I've had enough of Bono, Geldof, and the rest of the rock 'n' roll whiners.

Hartford Advocate, August 31, 2005

Alistair Highet

Alice Cooper has always been more sensible than a man who sings about dead babies has any right to be. Back in 2004, Cooper was disgusted to learn that R.E.M., Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews and other pop stars were organizing a series of concerts with the aim of trying to derail the Bush campaign.

"To me, that's treason," Cooper told a press agency, "I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics...If you're listening to a rock star in order to get information on who to vote for," he went on, "you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

I was moved to ask the rock stars of the world to shut up, after I saw an article this week concerning a difference of opinion between Eric Clapton, and Bob Geldof (and Bono). Now, I'm not sure which of the three is more tiresome. Certainly the "legendary" Clapton is amongst the worlds most tedious "legends," but he is marginally less annoying than Bono who appears to have a boundless appetite for attention. Neither is he as irritating as Geldof, however, who inhabits a world of smug all his own.

Anyway, Clapton told the German magazine Stern that Geldof was out of line earlier this summer when he criticized a number of political leaders for not increasing their aid allotment to Africa. This was on the eve of the Live 8 concert, organized by Geldof to support debt relief in Africa.

Particularly, Geldof told Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin that he should increase that country's foreign aid budget to .7 percent of GDP from .27 percent, and that this should be announced before the G8 summit in Scotland this past June.

"What gives him the right to do that?" Clapton asked in the German magazine. "I ask myself if musicians should conduct themselves like politicians. They are only musicians. Where do they get the right to talk like that?"

Here is precisely what Geldof said of Martin on the eve of the summit: "There's no use in the prime minister coming to Scotland unless he's prepared to do this deal. Unless he's prepared he should stay home. Don't come. You're not welcome unless you're prepared to do something finally."

Bono, who has also been outspoken on debt relief, and has traveled around the world meeting with foreign leaders -- never quietly, but always in the splashiest way he can manage, sunglasses at the ready -- also expressed his irritation with Mr. Martin's inadequate foreign aid budget. "I'm not satisfied, and I'm going to kick his butt," Bono said of the prime minister.

What's amazing about both Bono and Geldof's remarks concerning a democratically elected leader of one of the world's most progressive countries, is that these are not statements about debt relief or poverty or anything like that, they are about "me." Both statement are transparently about the ego-needs of Mssrs. Geldof and Bono.

Bono is going to kick Mr. Martin's butt? I see, it's about Bono now is it? He's not satisfied and he's going to fix it? Moreover, he is enough of a peer, indeed a big brother even, of the Prime Minister, that he's going to sort him out.

And apparently it is "Sir" Bob who gets to decide who is welcome in Scotland? Though he is neither elected, nor much of a rock star, he presumes he can speak on behalf of...I honestly can't imagine who he thinks he's speaking for. Britain? The world?

The problem with the job of rock star or movie star is that all the adulation and money and power that is thrown the star's way has a terribly distorting effect on the ego. And the ego is never satisfied. It's not enough to be a rock star, you also have to save the planet, whether you understand the planet or not, because that is how special you are.

Of course, they're entitled to their opinions. Still, as Alice Cooper says, the really revolutionary nature of rock is in the Dionysian, fun-loving, hell for leather essence of the music itself.


© Hartford Advocate, 2005.