Blades: Rocking In America Severely Restricted Under Bush

by Lars Eisenberg

And the hit-jobs just keep on a-comin' for the George W. Bush Administration. Hot on the heels of former White House Spokesman Scott McClellan's expose "What Happenned: Inside The White House and Washington's Culture of Deception", a scathing indictment of the administration's promotion of dogma over truth and loyalty over effectiveness, similar charges from a different quarter charge forth against the Lame Duck from Crawford.

Jack Blades, once and future lead singer and guitarist for successful 1980's rock group Night Ranger has just completed his insider's account of political influence and creative control inside the music and entertainment industries. "Don't Tell Me W Loves Me: Political Suppression of 21st Century Artistic Impression In An America In Which You Can No Longer Rock" details Blades' growing disenchantment with the Bush Administration's heavy-handed efforts to politicize and propagandize popular culture. "Look, I've been a patriotic guy my whole career," Blades begins. "When all the kids in the '80's started trashing President Reagan for his aggressive stance against the Soviet Union and his tightening the reins a bit on government spending, I took it upon myself to defend him the best way I knew how - by rocking." Where Night Ranger's first few attempts at Blades's message failed on tracks like "Domestic Welfare Spending Geometrically Detracts From Macroeconomic Growth Potential, Baby" and "Sister Republican", the message really caught on in the band's magnum opus "You Can Still Rock In America."

"Under Reagan," continues Blades, "as long as you weren't openly, directly and blatantly anti-establishment, the government let you do whatever you wanted. We could tease, sculpt, and/or buttress our hair however we pleased. Our shirts could be at skin-tight and ties as skinny as we saw fit. You could stuff whatever you wanted to down the front of your nigh-shrinkwrapped spandex trousers and nobody from the Reagan Administration said 'Boo!'"

But Blades contends the tenor changed dramatically under the second President Bush - especially after 9/11. "Suddenly, politcal honchos were visiting with our label bosses checking albums for pro-American content, and if you didn't meet their standards, your project was 'on hiatus'." After the invasion of Iraq, pro-American was no longer good enough. "Me and the band were informed in no uncertain terms that our 2003 album 'Although Pre-emptive War Seems Distinctly Un-Christian and Anti-Democratic, We Wholeheartedly Support Our Troops In Their Endeavors, Hot Mama' was to receive no radio airplay whatsoever unless we softened the title to a more Bush-friendly message. We were so infuriated that we left our label right then and there. When nobody else even attempted to pick us up, we knew the fix was in."

From there on out, it has been nothing but county fairs and group-package '80's band reunion tours for Night Ranger, a condition Blades assures us is due to the draconic effort of an overreaching despotic tyranny which currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. When asked if Night Ranger's current lack of fortune may be due to them largely being a clueless pack of middle-aged burnouts who really never rocked all that hard to begin with, Blades declined to respond.