Anti-Bullying Message from 1949

Looking at the headlines since the election of President-elect Trump, the message is sadly every bit as relevant today as it was in 1949.

Fake Lionel Richie

This CD was from the Mount Vernon City Library (WA) and particularly strange because these recordings aren't even from Lionel Richie at all. The singer(s) don't even sound close to Lionel Richie. Or Diana Ross on "Endless Love".
It was released in 1993 not on Motown (Lionel Richie's home label during his '80s hit making streak), but on something called Starnice. That was the first warning sign, along with the crummy, non-descript packaging.

A Googling of Starnice reveals it to be a Hong Kong based label with other titles of presumably similar knock-off material of other acts. Regardless, the CD is a fake and not worth anyone's money unless you like really bad anonymous karaoke covers better than original hit recordings (which I'm presuming most of you don't.)

I'm also sure this wasn't intended for sale in the U.S. where recordings like this are illegal to sell unless they are marked as not the original performer on the packaging. This is how these recordings otherwise get sold in America, as worthless anonymous "tribute" albums. I can't believe there's an entire bastard subset of the music industry dedicated to this crap (I once broke off a budding relationship with someone over the fact that she bought a Glee CD - no joke.) But this disc is a flat out fraud. It promises Lionel Richie, but gives you not one, but two and possibly three, maybe even four schmucks with detectable Chinese accents.

This disc starts out with an anemic cover of "Say You Say Me", bungled up lyrics in "Hello" ("I've been alone with you inside my head".) It's just droning electronic keyboards and lame attempts at sounding like Lionel Richie.     

And since it is a cheap, chintzy knockoff, I've included it for your masochistic pleasure. But most of you probably would rather have a tax audit instead of hearing this garbage.

Enjoy (Or something.)   

CD Front/Inside V Card (Other side was blank)

CD Back

CD Label

"Up With People" Up With People (1965)

When I was a kid, I hated this record. Like smash this record to atoms, melt it into an unrecognizable blob, jump on it, toss it into a woodchipper, melt it back down into another blob, toss it into a lead barrel, seal it with concrete and launch it into deep space hate this record.

Up With People is a musical troupe that goes around the country (and even the world) trying to bridge cultural differences and create global understanding through public service. And musicals. They released several albums (all including this song) from the 1960s to the 1980s. Actress Glenn Close was a member in the '60s

Good intentions and wholesomeness aside, UWP became infamous for four years as being the selected Super Bowl halftime act from 1976 to 1986. They were lambasted as utterly the worst Super Bowl halftime act ever and, well, here. Take a look.




UWP's incredibly choreographed and cheerful singing and dancing acts were remarkable visually. No sleazy "wardrobe malfunctions", hard rock music, hip-hop or anything remotely disturbing to heartland American sensibilities. They were as threatening as milk and cookies. 

But in spite of it as time wore on, Up With People's brand of entertainment had become increasingly stale and dated. Halftime became the time you made a run to the 7-Eleven for more beer, chips and ranch dip. It wasn't until 1987 when they were permanently dropped from the halftime act roster and were replaced by hipper, edgier pop acts and commercials you just have to see.


They returned as the pre-game act in 1991, but that would be their last Super Bowl appearance.

While some people may look at Up With People as some pseudo-hippie musical act about peace, love and understanding, I look at them as just one big, if somewhat creepily happy glee club.

However, They've received corporate funding, including from Halliburton (cue Jaws theme), General Motors, Exxon, Searle Pharmaceuticals - major progressive no-nos. Leading to criticism that they are more closely linked to right wing politics than they let on. They've also received praise from John Wayne, Pat Boone and Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush, not exactly the most liberal statesmen.

In 2009, a documentary was made on Up With People called Smile 'Til it Hurts: The Up With People Story.


Up With People are now in their 50th year. Not doing Super Bowl halftime shows, but still very much active.

The Long Wave Radio Band

Atlantic 252 was one of the first attempts to make a commercial pop station on LW radio and they actually became very successful in the 1990s with five million listeners. Listenership declined as local copycat stations on AM/FM and fewer radios capable of receiving long wave radio were available. After several format changes and a failed attempt at sports talk, 252 kHz now relays RTÉ Radio 1 for Irish communities in the UK and Europe.

The longwave (or LW) radio band is one you've probably never heard of if you live in the Western Hemisphere.

LW radio is mostly used in Europe and some countries in Asia. Long wave radio signals work similarly to AM. The signals cover a vastly wider area during daylight hours than standard AM because LW transmission relies mostly on ground waves, rather than skywaves (like standard AM and shortwave.) And because of their extremely long range, there are only a handful of countries in Europe with LW stations

The LW radio broadcast band is from 153 to 279 kHz, MUCH lower than the frequencies of a standard AM radio, which runs from 530 to 1710 kHz.

If you need a further breakdown, 1000 kHz AM is 1 MHz. The FM radio band begins at 88.1 MHz.

Yes, LW is really as far down as you should wisely go on the radio dial.

But the advantage of LW is it has an incredibly long range covering hundreds, even thousands of miles during daylight hours with a steadier, non-fading signal.

But LW in Europe today is regarded like AM in the Americas, a radio band for older people who remember it and it's use and listenership has severely declined in favour of higher fidelity FM and digital signals. But it is still fairly popular, especially for older British and European people living or commuting around the continent. It's also less affected by terrain than AM and especially FM and high frequency digital signals. It's also possible to drive from Spain to Austria and never lose the signal.

And I know what you're going to ask; Why didn't we have LW radio in this hemisphere?

Well, there's no easy explanation for that. Many factors come into play, but mostly it was the fact that LW was simply never allocated internationally as a specific broadcast band in the Western Hemisphere. Another is there are only 15 channels in the LW band and 107 channels on AM, later to 117 in the late 1980s with the expansion of the AM radio dial from 1600 to 1700 kHz.

Yet another is the LW signals are so vast, they would interfere with each other. And finally, they're more susceptible to electronic interference than even AM.  

However, that doesn't mean we weren't trying to use it.

In the 1970s and '80s, there was a planned civil defense radio network in the US called Public Emergency Radio. The network would broadcast on 167, 179 and 191 kHz.

The flagship station of this network was WGU-20 on 179 kHz out of Chase, Maryland.

WGU-20 was a service of a branch of the forerunner to today's FEMA called Defense Civil Preparedness Agency called DIDS. DIDS stood for Decision Information Distribution System, which was a network of Low Frequency broadcast and feeder stations, DIDS was supposed to deliver audio messages directly to the public within 30 seconds after activation. In case of attack, DIDS was supposed to save 10- 17 million additional lives in its initial deployment (by 1979), and as many as 27 million more if developed further.

Signing on in 1973, the purpose of WGU-20 and it's planned sister stations was to broadcast news and information to Americans in the event of a nuclear war. The station was always in test mode, 24/7.

However, listening to WGU-20 wasn't much fun. There was no music, no sports or casual talk on WGU-20 throughout it's life. No wacky morning zoos or outrageous contests either. WGU-20 only aired it's station ID, time checks and weather reports for the mid-Atlantic coast  

And here's what it sounded like:



The advantage of using an LW signal rather than standard AM or FM signal was because as I mentioned earlier, LW signals travel through the ground rather than the sky. And that's where most of us (hypothetically) would be in a nuclear war - underground. In bomb shelters.

Second, radio direction guided missiles would have more difficulty homing in LW signals because they don't rely on sky waves. Besides, since radio towers are above ground, they would likely be destroyed or unusable due to radioactive contamination.

Thus WGU-20's ominous unofficial nickname, "The Last Radio Station".

And LW stations have the same purpose in other countries. In The Letters of Last Resort, which are the considered the final acts of Her Majesty's Government in the event the UK is destroyed in a nuclear war and the Prime Minister and second in command are killed. One of the protocols given to UK nuclear submarine commanders is to listen for BBC Radio 4 on it's 198 kHz LW frequency. Because LW signals not only travel well underground, but underwater as well.

If there is no signal and all other protocols for verifying the worst have been followed and the UK is no more, the commander may retaliate with his/her submarine's nuclear weapons, not retaliate, join a commonwealth country like Canada or Australia or an allied nuclear power like the US or France. The exact orders can vary and change with each new Prime Minister.

And while LW is disappearing from modern European radios, it's worth noting how important it still is; UK submarines on patrol were reported to have briefly gone on nuclear alert in 2004 when BBC Radio 4's LW signal mysteriously went off the air for 15 minutes.

But while WGU-20 made it to the air, the other planned LW stations in the network did not.

First, we were pretty satisfied with the Emergency Broadcast System. Which is now called the Emergency Alert System, of which those ear splitting digital data bursts have replaced the once annoying, but comparatively easier on the ears 1 kHz audio tone.

Second, manufacturers balked at the idea of including LW tuning components in newer radios, which would add to the expense of manufacturing and ultimately serve no real purpose.

And third, with political pressure in the government cutback happy 1980s and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and 1990, there was really no need for such a network  

WGU-20's final broadcast was in 1990.

However, if you're curious to hear what LW radio sounds like, there's a tunable WebSDR in Peterborough, UK you can use to sample the European LW dial.

Happy Election Day!

Anti-Rock Music Hysteria

Racist religious tract, 1957

From the day rhythm & blues and country came together to form a brand new hybrid of pop music called Rock N' Roll that appealed to both young black and young white music fans, there was a problem....

Another racist anti-rock flyer, New Orleans, LA 1960

Older puritans hated ANYTHING with a backbeat. And the very thought of integrated black/white performing groups and audiences have always shocked and frightened social conservatives. Although their fear goes all the way back to the dawning of the Jazz age in the Roaring '20s, it began to really heat up especially as the Civil Rights movement was dawning and schools were required to become intergrated. Especially in the waning years of the Jim Crow era. 

Communism, Hypnotism and The Beatles by David A. Noebel, 1965

When the race card ultimately failed, they brought back other scary nemesis: Communism and the devil. Listening to The Beatles was surely a indoctrination and their records, audio Little Red Books, they alleged.

But The Beatles weren't exactly rationing their records away. And they were living pretty bourgeois lifestyles that Karl Marx probably wouldn't approve of. Besides, they were banned in The Soviet Union itself.

But religious conservatives latched onto a statement allegedly made by John Lennon. During an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity".

The comment went virtually unnoticed in England. But caused a viral massive public outrage in the US when quoted by an American magazine five months later. The furor that followed—burning of Beatles records and Ku Klux Klan threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.

"Well, before they can burn our records, they first have to buy them" - George Harrison

Amused by their supposed link to Communism by the American right-wing and religious fundamentalists. It's been said it was one of the reasons The Beatles recorded "Back In The USSR". Which shocked American ultra-conservatives speechless as their shaming of The Beatles backfired horribly on them.

Rhythm, Riots and Revolution by David A. Noebel, 1966

Rock N' Roll: The Devil's Diversion by Bob Larson, 1968

Rock & The Church by Bob Larson, 1971

But by the early '70s, the anti-rock hysteria had become a major tool of Christian evangelists to recruit impressionable young people. New acts such as Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls, Kiss and David Bowie were incorporating makeup and visuals into their performances, giving rock a more theatric flair. But to the religious right, they looked like black masses. But depending on who they were following, everything in pop culture at the time was a tool of the devil.   

Is it just me or are David A. Noebel and Bob Larson just not exactly the kind of guys you'd want to go out dancing with?

Backward Masking Unmasked by Jacob Aranza, 1983

But in the 1980s, with the popularity of heavy metal and new wave, came a flood of dire new books. The argument this time wasn't about race or Communism, but that rock directly promoted devil worship. And this time, they had proof...

Michael Mills "Hidden Satanic Messages in Rock Music" (1981) MP3

I had a friend named Rich who was a Born Again Christian who tried to convert me by playing the allegedly satanic lyrics of "Stairway To Heaven" Led Zeppelin backwards on his stereo turntable. "Can you hear it?" he said as he spun the record backwards "He (Robert Plant) just said 'My sweet Satan'! What do you think now?" All I knew was I had a really bad headache and a perfectly good Led Zeppelin record was needlessly ruined.... 

Why Knock Rock by Dan Peters & Steve Peters, (1984) This was also made into a video series that was shown at countless super lame Christian teen parties....

But in 1985, things got super ugly as the PMRC or Parent's Music Resource Center (or as we called them in high school, Pre-Menstruating Record Critics) was formed by senators wives Tipper Gore and Susan Baker, bringing potential legislation dangerously into this debate and rock n' roll was in for the fight of it's life.

Gore and Baker formed the group after Gore was listening to her daughter's cassette of Purple Rain by Prince and hearing the lyrics to the track "Darling Nikki", which specifically mentioned masturbation. Going through their kids music collections, they were 'shocked' to find many more albums with lyrics referencing violence and sex in even the most indirect way.

This included innocuous pop songs like "In My House" The Mary Jane Girls. And it could also include 85% of all pop music ever written in history. That was the disturbing thing about the PMRC. They thought the '50s and '60s were such a pure time musically and only since the 1980s did music get overtly sexual and mention gratuitous violence.

"My Girl's Pussy" Harry Roy & His Orchestra (1931)



"Butcher Pete (Parts 1&2)" Roy Brown (1950)


While many dismissed the PMRC as a group that was powerless against a by then well established music form, that wasn't entirely true. The very fact it actually made it to a senate hearing is proof of how dangerously close we were to actually legislating the end of free artistic expression in music.

And Frank Zappa knew what was at stake.

James Dobson & Susan Baker "Rock Music Lyrics" (1986) MP3

Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and John Denver appeared before congress and blasted the senate for the hearing and the thinly veiled attempt at censorship.

Dee Snider made an excellent remark regarding the Twisted Sister song "Under the Blade", a song Snider claimed was written about an impending surgery, that "the only sadomasochism, bondage, and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore." he stated, "Ms. Gore was looking for sadomasochism and bondage, and she found it. Someone looking for surgical references would have found it as well."

John Denver, whom the PMRC wives and the more conservative senators thought would side with them were in for a big surprise. And Denver should know something about getting censored; In the early '70s, his song "Rocky Mountain High" was banned off many radio stations due to the FCC's ban on songs that promoted drug use and some record shops refused to stock the song. He knew exactly what Snider, Zappa and the acts targeted by the PMRC were up against.     
But the most passionate speaker was Frank Zappa.


Naturally, the religious right were milking this for all they could get. In 1985, an avalanche of anti-rock books and local groups of religious and socially conservative people began appearing on daytime TV talk shows to denounce contemporary rock music.
 

More Rock, Country & Backward Masking Unmasked by Jacob Aranza (1985) Not even country music was safe. But the author hit a nerve with country artists and fans with this book, as country fans tend to be more religious and conservative. But not like this. This was going too far. And country artists and fans soon began joining the rockers when they realized their music was in the crosshairs as well.

 

Rock's Hidden Persuader: The Truth About Backmasking by Dan and Steve Peters (1985) Brothers Dan and Steve Peters were the type of Christians who would blame your bad day on a Thin Lizzy song you stumbled over on some Classic Rock station while scanning the radio dial. They argued satanic messages could be subliminally understood whether a record was played backward or forward...

The Devil's Disciples: The Truth About Rock by Jeff Godwin (1985) Unquestionably the most ludicrous of all the ludicrous books ever written on this immaterial subject. Even Christian rock and pop was a tool of the devil according to Jeff Godwin.

On December 23, 1985. James Vance and Raymond Belknap, after hours of drinking beer, smoking marijuana and allegedly listening to a cassette of Judas Priest's 1978 album Stained Glass, went to a playground in Sparks, NV with a 12-gauge shotgun to end their lives. Belknap was the first to place the shotgun under his chin. He died instantly after pulling the trigger. Vance then shot himself but survived, suffering severe facial injuries. Following numerous complications, Vance too passed away in 1988, three years after the suicide pact.

Vance and Belknap's parents sued Judas Priest, claiming the lyrics to "Better By You Better Than Me" (which was a cover of a 1969 song about a someone ending a romantic relationship through a third party from Spooky Tooth) prompted Vance and Belknap to their suicide attempts. A note written by Vance after the shooting was submitted as evidence as well as an "audio expert" who could discern evil in any record provided his example, claiming a subliminal message, saying "Do it" was repeated several times during the song.

(I personally heard that song many times before this tragedy and after, in both the Judas Priest and Spooky Tooth versions and both sober and drunk and high and not even once have I ever heard the words "Do it" in "Better By You Better Than Me". Nor have I ever felt the need to end my life over a song.)

Although the case was eventually dismissed in 1990, it further put rock music under the public microscope.

And the fear continued. In 1986, Wal-Mart stores (even then, a powerful and expanding empire) stopped carrying albums with explicit lyrics stickers and banned all rock magazines, including Rolling Stone from it's shelves. All albums for sale at Wal-Mart to this very day MUST be censored, clean versions.

And 1985/86 were rough years for Frank Zappa. He appeared on CNN's Crossfire program and staunchly defended artistic freedom....


.....And lampooned the PMRC controversy on his 1985 album Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention. 

 

Warning sticker from Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention.

Eventually, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) caved in November of 1985 and allowed for labels and retailers to voluntarily sticker their albums with a uniform Parental Advisory warning sticker to parents.

Donny Osmond (of all people) was vehemently opposed to Parental Advisory stickering. He predicted that teenagers would find a way to get an uncensored copy of the album regardless and that would negatively impact artists album sales as well with unsold and unmarketable "clean" copies of albums that would have sold without the Parental Advisory stickers. Osmond also argued that artists that did not make explicit music would be forced to do so to remain marketable. His predictions were proven correct in the early '90s as "clean" versions of popular gangsta rap albums were vastly outsold by the uncensored versions and mainstream pop/rock acts of the time such as Madonna and Kiss made their most explicit records then.   

Frank Zappa also released his album Jazz From Hell in 1986. And the album immediately was given an Parental Advisory sticker by the Pacific Northwest Fred Meyer department store chain. One of the very first to receive one.

Jazz From Hell was an entirely instrumental jazz album.

 

The Parental Advisory stickers did exactly the opposite of what was intended. They designated the "cool" albums - especially in the emerging hip-hop scene and it's sub-genre, gangsta rap. NWA, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg and others proudly and prominently displayed their Parental Advisory warnings not as stickers, but as an actual part of their album covers..

As hip-hop rose to prominence in the late 1980s, a Miami rap group called 2 Live Crew released their debut album The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are in 1986. Featuring shocking and sexually explicit lyrics, including the singles "We Want Some Pussy" and "Throw The Dick". In 1987, a Florida store clerk was acquitted of felony charges for selling the album to a 14 year old girl.

The game had been upped. Now record store owners and employees were facing prosecution for selling controversial albums to minors. Particularly 2 Live Crew's albums. Realizing what they were facing without retail sales, the group offered clean versions of their later albums. The move actually helped them because they became more accessible to radio and Miami radio station WPOW "Power 96" began playing 2 Live Crew's toned down offerings. But the group always made explicit records and a record store owner in Alexander City, Alabama, was cited for selling an explicit copy of their next album Move Somethin' to an undercover police officer in 1988. 

It was the first time in the United States that a record store owner was held liable for obscenity over music. The charges were dropped after a jury found the record store not guilty. But a chill was placed on American independent retail record shops. Especially in the Bible Belt and the Deep South.

 

However when 2 Live Crew's 1989 LP As Nasty As They Wanna Be was released, the shit hit the fan. Lawyers for the religious conservative group American Family Association met with Florida's governor at the time to see if the album met the state's definition of 'obscene'.

(To this day, outside of child pornography, very few things, if anything else, ever met mutually in any definition of obscene on a federal level. One person's obscenity is another's art. Even the Supreme Court allowed plenty of ambiguity in obscenity cases and left them up to the states in which these suits were being contested.)

The Broward County sheriff warned area record store owners that selling the album could be prosecutable after a county circuit court judge ruled there may be probable cause for obscenity violations. 2 Live Crew sued the sheriff and in June of 1989, a US district court judge ruled the album was obscene and two days later, a local record store clerk was arrested two days later, after selling a copy to an undercover police officer.

A few days later, members of 2 Live Crew was arrested for performing songs from the album at a nightclub in Hollywood, FL. The arrests and obscenity trials became international news and the group also received support from several rock and heavy metal artists. The memories of their earlier hassles with the PMRC were still painfully fresh.

Eventually, their convictions on obscenity were overruled.  

And somehow, the same old prudes that got their pantaloons in a twist over 2 Live Crew's albums completely ignored this classic from 1980.

In 1988, Poison released Open Up and Say... Ahh! While there was nothing controversial about the music itself, some people who overthink too much saw the cover model's Gene Simmons-like tongue and immediately wanted it banned.  

The "clean" cover of Open Up and Say... Ahh!

The obscenity threats also extended to rock album covers. And it had been for a very long time. But I'll save that for a future post.

In the mid '90s, gangsta rap reached saturation and began to fade. In it's place was a new musical threat to conservative and religious ideals. A hard rock group from Florida named Marilyn Manson emerged and at first glance, it was hard to see what they were upset about. It was a band that put a lot of theatrics in their shows, not unlike anything Alice Cooper and Kiss did 20 years before. But the rumour that Marilyn Manson was allegedly a priest in the Church of Satan (as well as the title of his 1996 LP was Antichrist Superstar) led to even more gruesome - and totally ludicrous stories, such as onstage human sacrifices, rapes and torture.

Marilyn Manson

But what made the allegations different was they were being spread by the internet, which was new and had virtually no rules in it's beginnings. But malicious lies and slander could be spread across the nation in virtually seconds and totally anonymously back then. And spread even farther and to others that much more quickly. By word of mouth alone, it took months to years at the fastest that they could be spread. 

And the band's leader/namesake Marilyn Manson had to fight back a daily barrage of unfounded and increasingly outrageous statements against him. And he did and took legal action against the sources of these statements. And they quickly ceased. Manson's music was also criticized after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO as the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, were fans of Marilyn Manson. And suddenly, Manson found himself in the same ugly national spotlight as Judas Priest and 2 Live Crew had a decade earlier. While no legal action was taken against Marilyn Manson, having to go through that experience alone is pretty traumatic.  

In the 2000s, a Detroit based hip-hop duo called Insane Clown Posse made hot lyrics a part of their act since their mid 1980s beginnings and after years of music industry rejection and the obsessiveness of their fans (known as 'Juggalos') of their beloved duo had came to a cult-like hero status outside of the mainstream had recently earned them another status - federally recognized criminal gang. 

Insane Clown Posse

In 2011, the FBI put the Juggalos alongside such notorious criminal gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, Surenos, Latin Kings and MS-13. They cited certain examples of assaults and vandalism allegedly involving Juggalos, which Insane Clown Posse vehemently condemned and questioned. The band recently filed a lawsuit against the FBI and lost. But Insane Clown Posse plan to continue the legal fight against the classification. 

While most rock/pop stars realize a certain amount of urban legends are actually helpful to their careers. When the myths begin to overtake the facts, it's time to draw a line. Books like the ones illustrated above would never be allowed to be published unchallenged by the artists the books are making reference to today.

Maybe what some people forget is it's pop/rock and hip-hop music's role to challenge the status quo. If rock had never evolved beyond the '50s, it would never have survived. And each generation brings changes. Some of them marvelous, others not so much.

Maybe sometimes the most outrageous acts that come along are just a generational gimmick to attract disenfranchised youth. Sometimes, they work. And sometimes, they don't. 

Or maybe no matter what you call it, it's only rock n' roll. But we like it.

The Red Scare

 

Milk (2008)

"Milk", starring Sean Penn and Josh Brolin is about San Fransisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, an openly gay businessman who had gotten sick of not only watching other gay people being harassed and bullied by a stiff city establishment but other minorities such as African Americans, the poor, elderly and people with disabilities being used as scapegoats and the first to suffer in any major city decision of that time. He not only stood up for the underdog, but he championed them. He put PEOPLE first - something a lot of politicians only pay lip service to. Milk actually did something about.

Milk transcends being a mere gay bio-film. While Milk's sexuality is never too far off, the real gist of the movie is how he gave the system a major wake up call and how he paid the ultimate price for standing up for what he believed in. From his beginnings as a flamboyant camera store owner in the Castro district of San Fransisco to the political battles he fought against the city and self-righteous anti-gay crusaders such as Anita Bryant to finally being elected city supervisor of San Fransisco and the turmoil that followed, especially from his biggest opponent, Dan White who assassinated Milk and San Fransisco Mayor George Moscone.

The story of Harvey Milk is a fascinating one for me, having read The Mayor Of Castro Street by Randy Shilts several years ago.

HIGHLY recommended reading!

I always loved his appeal to the social outcasts and how he worked to level the playing field for all people. We sure as hell could use a guy like him today.

One could only wonder what could have been had he not been assassinated. He most likely would have ended up mayor of San Fransisco and would probably have made it to Washington DC by now. I'd take Harvey Milk anyday over Diane Feinstein.

Harvey Milk never got the recognition he truly deserves for not only breaking down a LOT of doors and glass ceilings for gays and lesbians, but for inspiring all of us that the underdog can lose many battles, but still win the war in The Good Fight. The people know a true hero when they see one.

North Korean Pop Culture

Morning rush hour traffic snarls in downtown Pyongyang......

First, before I go into this, I need to say I'm not a sympathizer of the North Korean regime and I'm aware of the atrocities and miserable human rights record of it. It's no joke.

But the contradiction between the North Korean 'official' line of "Paradise On Earth" and reality are embarrassingly visual just by viewing and listening to North Korea's own media and raise far more uncomfortable questions than the regime can explain or live down. So you don't ask questions. Who asks questions in North Korea?
 
That said, what I'm showcasing here is the regime manufactured pop culture of this strange country. It's one that is strangely fascinating to me because it is so far off the grid from the rest of the world, it's one that needs an illustration. There is nothing anywhere else in the world like it. (Even Cuba has loopholes.)

In most ways, North Korea is The Land That Pop Culture Forgot. Because in North Korea, the regime dictates what you have for fun, recreation, music, food and style. It must conform to "revolutionary" principles (or at least not be a threat to them.)


That kinda stifles things a bit in the pop culture development department.

First, it's hard to get a real look inside the country. You can't just arrive, check into your hotel and freely stroll around Pyongyang, meeting and talking with people, taking pictures and visiting the locals without a minder (a government official designated to guide you around to specific places and people only) Tourists are forbidden to stray beyond their hotel without one.

This isn't London, Sydney or Tokyo.

Americans in particular are viewed with suspicion in North Korea. It's been that way since the 1950s when America backed South Korea in the Korean War. A war that never actually ended (a truce was signed but never a formal peace treaty.) But there are always skirmishes along the De-Militarized Zone - a funny name for one of the most heavily armed places on earth, with a million soldiers on either side, waiting for the other side to blink. (And as long as there is a DMZ, the war is still on.)

Americans still aid the South Koreans, but in nowhere near the numbers of the Korean War itself. And a few American soldiers even went turncoat and defected to North Korea.

The funny thing about James Dresnok is while he looks like he's got it made, he sure drinks a lot. Note also all the full unopened bottles on the table. Most of us would stick that in the fridge already....

And they still like taking American POWs (as Merrill Newman, Laura Ling, Kenneth Bae and Euna Lee can tell you.)

So that kinda wipes it off most people's travel plans.

The only factor it does have going for it is outside curiosity. Because many people want to peek over the bamboo curtain and see what it looks like. Not that there's much to see.

So let's look at what's there:

Music

There is no rock music in North Korea. Or ever has been. There's been buzzing talk all over the record collector forums of The Beatles having official North Korean albums. But that's just amateur vinyl collectors trying to psyche the novices with South Korean Beatles albums and there's no actual evidence of any official North Korean Beatles releases.

Nice try.

Or ANY Western pop music. Ever. No blues, country, jazz, punk, rap or thrash metal either. Not for North Koreans.

Even in the Kim family's better moods.

North Korean music is the only music in the world in North Korea. You do not get to play the music the Dear Leader does not approve. Any other music, especially from capitalist countries, is punishable by (assume the worst.)

The only pop music in North Korea is a hybrid electronic Easy Listening / Classical / Soft Adult Contemporary kind of propaganda delivered via acts such as The North Korean Army Band, The Moranbong Band, The Pyongyang Gold Stars and The Ponchonbo Electric Ensemble and simply everybody's favourite, Unknown.

These aren't exactly The Greatest Hits of All Time in the rest of the world.

(But that doesn't mean Western pop doesn't sneak in in some strange and subtle way. Take The Pyongyang Gold Stars accordion reworking of a-ha's 1980's classic "The Sun Always Shines On TV")


Going through the North Korean YouTube channels, here are the current hits. Not in any particular order. There are no pop charts in North Korea and only a more dedicated music eccentric than I outside of North Korea would know WHEN they were actually released to the public there. If ever. Or WHO they actually are.

It's been said members of the North Korean bands change line-ups worse than Styx, Kiss, Van Halen or even Jefferson Starship. And not exactly by petty egos, drug abuse, solo ambitions or infighting either....

So here's The Latest Hits in North Korea:

"The Leader's Bright Smile" The North Korean Army Band
"Socialism, We Love You" Unknown
"If Mother Party Wishes" The Moranbong Band
"We'll Become Regiment No. 7 of Today!" Unknown
"Let's Study!" The Moranbong Band

This isn't exactly Casey Kasem's Top 40.

Pyongyang 105.2 FM - This is the local FM radio station of Pyongyang. It broadcasts only in the evenings and plays a daily mix of anthems, arduous marches and easy listening pop. All of which praise the regime or are nationalistic in some way.


No "Hit or History" new song battles, no wacky morning zoos, no Top 40 countdowns, no love songs and dedications hours (unless they're for the Dear Leader. Your boyfriend can go boil an egg for all they care.)

Concerts: Did I mention there is no thrash metal in North Korea? Good. Your codpiece is invalid anyway in North Korea. No mosh pits, no festival seating, no Bic lighter waving power ballads, no shouts of "PLAY FREE BIRD!", no high decibel volume levels or risque stage antics. You can take your most conservative grandma to a North Korean concert with confidence.

Some people take a video cam to a concert, others take their hashpipes. Dear Leader takes his big oak office desk. When was the last concert you did that? Slayer?


The Moranbong Band (North Korea's answer to....I guess the closest thing this side of Pyongyang to these girls would be Celtic Woman) is currently the most popular band in North Korea. Because the Dear Leader says so.

Shopping

Shopping is a tricky subject in North Korea. Because there isn't any.

Actually, there is - in  Pyongyang. But what's there is mostly for display. There is always new construction going on in Pyongyang and what comes up are usually big gorgeous department stores with everything.

Except customers.


But this isn't the real North Korean shopping experience.

This is.

TV


First, there is only one TV channel in North Korea. And only in Pyongyang.

It broadcasts 6-8 hours a day. Usually in the evening hours There is no weekday television, filled with gossipy entertainment talk shows, soap operas, infomercials and trailer trash. People are either working or going to school.

The only other daytime broadcast option is a state controlled radio channel that wafts in through most Pyongyang apartment kitchens with programming mostly for housewives.

These radios are built-in and tuned to the main state radio channel. It is only capable of receiving that station. No others. In fact, there's a seal on the back that if broken could send you to the prison camps because it would indicate you were trying to listen to foreign broadcasts. And while you can turn down the volume, you can never turn them off. 

The TV broadcast day begins at around 4:30pm and features a test card with a soundtrack of instrumental easy listening music similar to the kind you hear on Pyongyang 105.2 FM.

The hottest prime time TV programs in North Korea stars the Dear Leader as he goes around inspecting all sorts of new construction, making comments and gestures as if to say "You know I hate that shade of blue, don't you?"

Often, he is flanked by several army members and an entourage that writes down his comments on little notepads.

 You can watch it live online here: http://112.170.78.145:50000/chosun. Note that program start times are very erratic. That's because there are no commercials on North Korean TV. The only break up between programs are the music videos (again, only of nationalist music. No titillating girls shaking their butts all over the hoods of sports cars.) 

Food

North Korea is one of those places that would even make a dedicated foodie like me nervous.

Purple beer?

But in a country that starves the majority of it's citizens (except for Dear Leader of course), they take what they can get.

Even the names of the factories that make North Korean food are gross...

It's "crabonated"!

But the first indicator you may have strayed too far (if you missed the Beijing airport, the Air Koryo terminal and the Ilyushin IL-62 you are boarding) are the infamous Air Koryo in-flight hamburgers. 

Computers & Internet

First, there's two platforms of internet access.


For you, the tourist with your tablets and smartphones, there's 3G mobile service thats limited to the special tourist hotel you'll be staying at (P.S. Watch what you tell your Facebook friends and Aunt Sadie in Peoria. It's monitored.) You have to have a special SIM card to call out or receive incoming calls/texts.

For you, the North Korean in Pyongyang, a special intranet that connects only to a government server with only regime approved (and created) sites. There is no home internet service (so much for "Paradise on Earth".) All access to this North Korean-only network is for university students and higher-ups and only at The Great Study Hall and certain universities. The two networks do not connect at all.

Newspapers will be alive and well in North Korea long after the civilized world has abandoned them.

The main computer operating system is North Korea's own Red Star OS. Which is based on Linux and functions similar to Windows XP. It is only in Korean and accesses the North Korean intranet only. There are download links to a pirated copy and if you dare with an old computer, you can install it. But you won't be able to access the North Korean intranet, as it is completely off the grid from the main internet.

These are screenshots from an older version. The newest version which came out earlier this year resembles Mac OS X.    

 

There is now a little tablet computer for North Koreans, based on Android called Samjiyon. It comes with a North Korean version of Angry Birds. It doesn't have any internet or even North Korean intranet access.

 

Style & Fashion

Note the pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on the walls. They are mandatory in every apartment, every house, every building and every office and in every public room in North Korea and are to be treated with the same reverence a religious person would give their most cherished symbols. If not more so... 

You know those big books of modern hairstyles you see in most beauty salons? In North Korea, they have those too. Each one carefully selected by the regime (lest your hair become a subversive agent in itself.)

There's even a TV show in North Korea called (and I'm not making this up) Let's Trim Our Hair In Accordance With The Socialist Lifestyle

No slacker shags. No dreadlocks, no poofy curls, no punk mohawks. You can't dye your hair or go totally bald. Or deviate and create your own look in any way. What you see is what you get. 

But more recently, it's been said all male university students must now have the same Operation game haircut as the Dear Leader.

I must say that's not a look that works for every guy. Not even Dear Leader. But who's going to tell him "Dear Leader, your hair looks like a mustache glued to the top of an egg"? Who?

You can't get tattoos in North Korea. No string bikinis for the ladies. No badass leather jackets. No t-shirts, no jeans, no sneakers.

The military look seems all the rage. When a third of the population is conscripted to some military service, that's to be expected.

When all is said and done, you're probably thinking "These people will never change. They will live forever in this existential hellhole of make believe on one end and brutal repression, starvation and very bad taste on the other." 

That's not entirely true...

Outside pop culture is sneaking in (as it always does.) On black market thumb drives and DVDs filled with South Korean TV shows, movies and other material. However, DVDs are becoming a less favoured option and here is why. Electricity is scarce in North Korea and blackouts are frequent. But most especially, some of the blackouts are planned. So police can conduct door by door searches for any contraband and should you wind up with a naughty illegal DVD stuck in your DVD player because you can't open the thing (not an easy thing to do in the dark with cops banging at the door), you and your entire family are doomed. Thumb drives are easier to hide and most modern Chinese made DVD players have thumb drive players built in. Little wind-up shortwave radios are also coming in. 

You see, any totalitarian regime begins to collapse when it suppresses pop culture. It's simple human nature to have fun and colour in our lives. To not only see and dream about the outside world, but to travel beyond our own borders. Be they geographic or in our own minds

Rock 'n roll itself caused more rust to the Iron Curtain than any of Reagan's tough talk in the 1980s through smuggled records and tapes in the '60s and '70s.

A magazine ad from 1980.

By the 1980s, Gorbachev himself knew the totalitarianism of his predecessors was impossible to maintain. The people of the former Soviet Union were demanding change. He had no other choice but to begin glasnost (or "openness".) Which led to fall of the Eastern Bloc nations, the Berlin Wall to where we are today. China itself, once one of the most hardline of totalitarian states, now has freewheeling pop culture.

Will North Korea change?

It will. But not overnight. Change doesn't work that way. You just have to keep chipping away until the wall finally collapses.

But it will collapse. History doesn't lie.