Doesn’t time fly? Here we are in late May and it’s been ages since I last posted. Many apologies, a full month of ill health, final preparation on the Thurston Moore book I’ve been working on, plenty of my real job to do, a lot of real life.
The attached piece written for Words & Guitars is…Well, I’m less temperate or mellow than I’d be ordinarily. Jesse Hughes of the Eagles of Death Metal made a batch of comments about what happened at the Bataclan in Paris last year. Why does it bother me? Because this is friends of mine he’s talking about, these are people I love and care for that he’s calling terrorists when they’re just as upset or worried by it as anyone else. The day I see Jesse Hughes take responsibility for crimes committed by white Christians is the day I’ll suggest that the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are anything other than individuals getting on with their lives as, unfortunately, the usual ragtag bunch of idiots present in any society or group ruin it for the majority.
Here’s the letter shared by one Muslim survivor of the Bataclan attack:
And here’s the piece regarding the gentleman who saved several hundred lives that night:
Nirvana Legacy 
Jesse has always been a right-wing douche bag. The attacks are giving him the perfect excuse to somehow legitimise these views (in his eyes). There’s a backlash now and I am pleased that the band have been dropped from a couple of festivals in France. My friends are friends with a group of people who were at the EoDM gig in The Bataclan and I’ve heard how much they have suffered after the event with very little help from anyone. Not once have they blamed people who follow Islam. They always refer to the attackers as ‘terrorists’ (or cu***).
It’s such a shame when a member of a band you love is such an arsehole. I wonder what Josh Homme thinks of it all. He seems fairly liberal.
It’s disheartening isn’t it. Some cretin just spammed the thread with a link using bad math to try to claim that people having sympathy with a perspective means all of them are radicals and terrorist supporters; tarring millions who will never commit or actively fund/support an act of terror.
It mentioned ‘anti-feminism’ – but I thought it was referring to the Republican Party. The hysteria about sharia law is also interesting given the support of the U.S. right for bombing civilians at will and for the death penalty. At one point it mentioned that there are 2.5 million Muslims in the U.S. but forgot to mention that of that 2.5m, how many have committed or been involved with any terrorist act against the U.S.? What…Ten? Twenty? Sub-Sub-1% but according to this idiot it justifies aggressive, anti-freedom policies aimed at the control, subjugation and mass punishment of Muslims. It also failed to comprehend that the current hysteria about Muslims is very much a part of the ongoing discomfort many feel about people of other races – Jesse Hughes apparently believes one can ‘see’ a Muslim because he can’t separate race from religion, belief from physical appearance.
The guy who posted on Facebook had a really good point – that Rock and Roll was meant to be the voice of the rebel, of individualism, of freedom…But there are (as ever) some rockers who are basically Richard Nixon clones and are only interested in the freedom and individualism of people who adhere to their specific views and beliefs – anyone else should be punished. I’m glad there are rockers out there who say challenging things – it’s their right. But they deserve to be called out when they’re wrong.