Ask 411 Music 02.02.12: Blacklisted

Posted by Ron Martin on 02.02.2012

Did the Dixie Chicks get banned from country radio stations? What bands have performed under different identities? How are bands labelled by record companies? All this and more in this week's edition of Ask 411 Music!

We're back keeping things on the bully here in the 411 Music section. Yeah, "bully" is my new word. I'll probably forget it exists by next week, so no worries.

I'm stoked about all the free concerts in Indy on Saturday, including one of my favorite bands, HERE COME THE MUMMIES. I've been volunteering my time to the Super Bowl events taking place in Indianapolis and I'm happy that I have. The thing has been crazy organized and a good time by everyone downtown, volunteers and guests. I wish I could get a volunteer spot in the stadium on gameday, but then again, don't we all? I'll settle for some good bands, overpriced liquor and trip down the zipline.


BIRTHDAYS!


GRAHAM NASH of CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG turns 70 years old today…





AL MCKAY, guitarist for EARTH, WIND & FIRE turns 64 today…





SHAKIRA turns 35 today…





PORN STAR BIRTHDAY



BRANDY TALORE



IT CAME FROM MY IPOD


It's Super Bowl week. The Super Bowl is in my hometown. What else did you think was going to be the subject for five songs from my iPod?


1."The Game" by Motorhead
2."Everlasting Party" by Here Come the Mummies
3."The Righteous and the Wicked" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
4."Wait and Bleed" by Slipknot
5."We Are the Champions" by Queen








It's that time of week, folks, time for...

THE QUESTIONS

Were the Dixie Chicks blacklisted?

Kind of.

In early 2003, with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, still fresh on Americans minds, America found itself at war with terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of people in America questioned then President GEORGE W BUSH's motives in the war. To hear criticism of Bush's decision making wasn't abnormal.

It was abnormal, however, in the country music world. While I'm sure it's not the case with every single one, country music fans tend to be way right on the political scale. They like their guns, their Bible and their patriotism. THE DIXIE CHICKS were one of the hottest selling country music artists at the time and had been for some time. While labelled country, the Dixie Chicks have always been a little different than their contemporaries. Something about them has always been "off" from the country music scene.

At a concert at the SHEPERD'S BUSH EMPIRE THEATER in London, England, fueled by anti-war feeling amongst Europeans, NATALIE MAINES told the crowd that they were against the war and being from Texas, they were ashamed the President was from Texas. If you are a country music artist, you just don't crticize a Republican President. If you're a rock n roller, you're almost required to, but not a country music artist.



The backlash was quick and large. Fans began boycotting all things Dixie Chicks. Country music radio stations stopped playing their music. In Atlanta, fans brought their Dixie Chick CDs to a local radion station to watch them get run over by a bulldozer. The Dixie Chicks went into damage control mode trying to soften up the statement without actually taking it back. While they were criticized in country music circles, rock n rollers such as BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and MADONNA came out in support of the group. When asked, President Bush gave the usual "freedom of speech answer" while still getting in a dig at the band. The ladies received death threats in some Southern states and lost sponsors. Country music disc jockeys got suspended for playing their music. Maines hersself became embroiled in a fued with country music artist TOBY KEITH, who has cornered the market on making money off of patriotism and I believe has red, white and blue colored shit.

The controversy got the Dixie Chicks a lot of attention from liberal media, including TV guest spots, magazine covers. By September of that year due to a lack of support from the country music industry, the Dixie Chicks had denounced country music and announced they were part of the big ol' rock n' roll family.

In mid-2006, the Dixie Chicks released Taking the Long Way which included songs about their "blacklist" ordeal. The album debuted at #1 on both the country and pop charts despite little airplay on country music stations. Strong country music supporting states (I'm looking at you, the American South) were still slow to embrace the band forcing several concerts to be cancelled or moved to smaller venues in those areas. Sales picked up, however, in the American Northeast as well as Canada and Europse. The album earned the band five Grammys.



While the country music world is still healing its wounds regarding the Dixie Chicks, time heals all wounds and I believe the band is slowly but surely working their way off the blacklist.






MYSTERIOUS VERSION is...mysterious...
How do record companies define bands by genre if the band in question doesn't really fit nicely into the normal "rock, pop, r&b, rap" columns?

In particular there was a band out of Austin, TX called Storyville that seemed to fall short of main stream success, largely in part (IMO) to the fact that they weren't a band that could be categorized neatly.
Have you ever heard of Storyville? Would you perhaps do a write up about the band Storyville and let the fans they do have know what those boys are up to these days.

Let's start with STORYVILLE. As the mysterious one suggests, Storyville was a band with a lot of success in Austin, Texas that got them noticed and a record deal with ATLANTIC RECORDS. They recorded two albums for the label having a little success with "Born Without You" charting on a category chart.



I don't know how hard they are to categorize. Everything I'm seeing seems to want to call them "Blues Rock." Even the bands MYSPACE (yes, myspace) page categorizes them as such. From what I've heard, I would agree with that assessment. The band broke up in 2008.

As for what they are up to now -- these guys are going what they've alway done -- rocking. Lead singer MALFORD MILLIGAN has formed another Austin-based band, THE MALFORD MILLIGAN BAND. Guitarist DAVID HOLT pieced together another Austin band and released PERPETUAL MOTION. The others have worked on solo projects as well as going back to session music for top blues oriented rock names.

As for the first question, if a band is hard to categorize, I think a record company may push a producer to work the band's sound a little closer to a mainstream genre. It's all about marketing. With a band like Storyville, you'd want to market them as Blues Rock because ther are certain markets, radio stations and fans who will give them a listen just because of the label. If the band has an extremely hard to define sound, a record label may put them into a genre and see what kind of reaction they get. In this case, critics and fans might label the band one way wherein the record company can get a feel for how to market the band. Like everything else, music is a business and the record company needs to know what it's investing it's money in. If you can't explain to radio stations, concert venues and record stores what kind of record you're peddling, it makes promoting that record twice as difficult.





DARTHCHIVER IS A TWAT (I bet that's not the name his mother gave him) has a question...
One of my favorite bands is The Bronx. I was very excited to hear they would be branching out musically in the form of Mariachi el Bronx. I was even more pleased to find that the new incarnation was just as great as the original. What are some other examples of established bands performing under other names or identities?

The first name that popped into my head here was GARTH BROOKS who famously created his rock alter ego CHRIS GAINES. Brooks production company RED STROKES ENTERTAINMENT developed a movie about a rock star called The Lamb. Rumor at the time had the company pursuing AEROSMITH's STEVEN TYLER for the lead role. However, It was Brooks himself who was tappes for the lead role of Gaines. To help promote the movie, Brooks recorded a rock album as Chris Gaines in 1999 entitled Garth Brooks in...The Life of Chris Gaines. I vividly remember an episode of Saturday Night Live where Garth Brooks was the host and Chris Gaines was the musical guest. The experiment was pretty much a failure as country fans didn't want to hear Garth Brooks as a rocker and rock n roll fans wanted nothing to do with Garth Brooks in any form. Believe it or not, there are hundreds of people doing their versions of Chris Gaines on video, but no actual Chris Gaines video, so you're going to have to settle for a picture.



Even though there wasn't much a difference as far as musical genre goes, the aforementioned Aerosmith appeared in the strange BEATLES tribute movie Sgt, Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band as the corporate puppet band, FUTURE VILLAIN BAND singing a cover of the Beatles Come Together. If you've ever wanted to see Aerosmith as a villainous corporate rock banding fighting various members of the BEE GEES and PETER FRAMPTON, then click the video below. One of them even dies.



I don't know if this counts, but legend surrounding funk band Here Come the Mummies is that several of the band members are actually regulars in other funk bands that have recording contracts with other record companies. So, dressing up like mummies isn't only a clever gimmick, but also conceals the identities of the band members as to avoid any lawsuits from other record companies. Don't know if that's true, but that's part of the legend surrounding my favorite funk band.

I feel like I am missing someone really obvious. Commenters? You know of anyone I'm missing?





Another three question column -- somebody's not going to be happy. However, that's all we have for this week. Tune in next time in the same section of the same website on the same day of the week. As always, questions can be posted in the COMMENTS section or sent to me directly via my email address at the bottom of this column. As they are making the volunteers in Indy say for the Super Bowl -- Have a Super Day!!




I must leave you now.