Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn warns the bikers over their carbon emissions.

Live simulcast starts at 1PM CST through the official We Stand With Gibson site.

What is it about American Exceptionalism that the soon-to-be ex-President Urkel H. Anti-Christ, Jr. hates so much?  Much like the impetus for the astroturfed “Occupy Wall Street” mob scenes, it has a lot to do with whether your check cleared the DNC.  Like the radio payola scandals, it also appears that federal agents are taking requests with mercenary aplomb from the far Left end of your dial.

The abbreviated version is that earlier this year Obama’s eco-stormtroopers at the hilariously misnamed US Dept. of Fish and Wildlife attacked the guitar manufacturer during a daring daylight raid, guns draw on employees, out of fear that Gibson’s inventory of awesome would have been flushed down their toilets had they simply knocked on the door with a search warrant.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?  I mean it’s not selling automatic weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels in order to pin gang violence on US gun owners but it’s a nice touch.

At issue seems to be that Gibson employs documented American citizens to do some fit and finish work on the wood used in their instruments.  Americans who should be drawing patriotic unemployment checks. 

In an interview with Beck radio affiliate KMJ 105.9 in Fresno, California, Juszkiewicz told host Chris Daniel that the government made the point “explicitly:”

CHRIS DANIEL:  Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?

HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ:  They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL:  Excuse me?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ:   They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL:  That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ:  Yes, yeah. They said that explicitly.

It’s not that the wood is harvested from the Tree of Souls from Avatar though if it were it would probably rock your face off and simultaneously get your cats pregnant.  And it’s not that a foreign government lodged a complaint.  No, US Fish and Wildlife decided to pro-actively enforce another country’s laws and pervert one of our own when the other country did not think it was a problem.  Gee, I wonder why.

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

The Gibson facility wasn’t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. Not even close. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn’t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.

While armed federal agents assert prosecutorial discretion to enforce another country’s protectionist laws.  We all know what this is.  The same thing that happened to car dealerships that contributed to Republicans after the bailout.  The same thing that happened to Ford when the White House demanded that they retract their anti-bailout commercials.

The Chicago Way may be fine for blues music and deep dish pizza but it’s  un-American in a Presidency.

Everybody lend your support to this international icon today being forced to decide whether they should  layoff all of it’s US employees to stay in the good graces of our Gangster Government or fight the good fight until this administration is thrown out on its red diaper rash in 13 months.
*********
B-Mac Update:

So far a pretty good turnout early on. Maybe 1,000 or more. Definitely kicking the ass of that slacker OWS rally in Centennial Park a few days ago. Unfortunately, it appears Darlene McBride is the opening act. I understand how you would think that I may be embellishing that but….nah.

Steve Gill just gave a little speech imploring everyone to take a look at their neighbors in the audience since we’ll all be sharing bunks in the concentration camp one day. Obviously joking but its easy to see that could be intentionally taken out of context.

Crowd’s kind of feeling it by Nashville standards. Don’t know who’s screening the talent here. The lead singer of some group called Madison Rising just gave a soliloquy about why we need the 2nd Amendment. Don’t give your haters any ammunition guys.  Starting off by not recording any of those songs.  Did we really need Mark Russell to give up the piano and pick up a guitar and distortion pedal?  No.  No we didn’t.

Ken Marrero of Blue Collar Muse probably gave the most impassioned speech of the attendees.  I’m pretty certain that’s him as I’ve never seen or met him before.  He was on point about the overkill of federal agents in raiding the Gibson factory and how Gibson is having to sue the government to get information from them about what evidence is being brought against them along with the material damage to their reputation that can never be restored until this case is either dropped or won.

Expect a picture of some old truck with confederate flags to make its way onto some commie site as a smear against this overwhelmingly normal looking crowd.

Some pics to follow once my phone charges back up.

Oops.  This must be the racists for Herman Cain “Hillbilly Hybrid”.  You guys realize that nuance is lost when the smear comes, correct?

THE BAD:  I know it seems I’m being a little down on this event but only because of some of the planning - not the people in attendance.  For Christ’s sake, Gibson is arguably the most well known guitar company in history.   They should be able to get some of their musicians who have endorsement  deals to play an event like this to highlight their own products if not their plight instead of 5 Lee Greenwood knock-offs.  To talk about a lack of focus, it’s a rally to support a guitar manufacturer who has been abused by an overreaching government.

It’s not a Support The Troops Rally by way of a church service.  Not that anybody doesn’t support the troops.  Not that everybody’s not down with the JC, yo.  It is about focus though or lack thereof.

After hearing some of Gibson’s CEO’s responses on call-in shows and in the press ever since the raid, I was expecting a little more fire and brimstone.  However, if his speech was supposed to be a call-to-arms it was being issued from underneath a wet blanket.

Phil Valentine threw a little red meat to the audience which could have come from any one of his nightly shows and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn offered little more than a Cliff’s Notes stump speech which, due to my overexposure, has resulted in immunization to anything resembling excitement.

THE GOOD:  A solid turnout of positive support.  For something and not just against something.  Or in the case of OWS, against ANYTHING.  Even the Paultards in attendance seemed to be on their best behavior.  In typical Nashville fashion, everyone there was unfailingly polite, clean and orderly which is the major distinction between Conservatives and Libertarians and the off-the-rack anarchists and Suburban Communists sucking on the hind tit over middle aged adolescence who leave their protesting stomping grounds in much the same way I imagine their bedrooms.

The event was being covered.  I saw almost all of the local news stations in addition to the AP correspondent on the scene no doubt sharpening her pen on her tongue to paint the event as a Klan Rally on Kristallnacht Eve.  We’ll see if I’m wrong on that point.

There was a strong Tea Party element to the event but as with my observations in its infancy there is no centralization.  People show up and people leave.  There is no effort to capture or maintain any momentum from the people who showed.

Which leaves me asking , “What, if anything, was accomplished here?”

R.I.P. Doug.

More rock greatness down the tubes.

NOT-SO-FRIVOLOUS UPDATE:

Unrelated music news, the last of the Jimi Hendrix Experience has gone to join his bandmates. RIP Mitch Mitchell.

Ha! Does this guy look like the cool, rockin’ 80′s guitarist we remember so fondly or just some goofball who got too much sun on the beach?

A gas-guzzling, air-polluting Hummer??? Wait a second! Aren’t Richie and the rest of the Bon Jovi crew some of Algore’s Concert-for-Climate-Change, Earth-love buddies? This can’t be accurate can it? I knew that he was a cowboy on the steel horse he rides, but the song never mentioned his world-class SUV.

Uh oh.. careful there Richie. You’ll end up in the slammer giving love a bad name. Perhaps they were just a couple of little runaways?

The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way.NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star.

[...]

“Send my love to the aliens,” Paul McCartney told NASA through a Beatles historian. “All the best, Paul.”

Yes. By all means let’s send the aliens our love and hope that they speak the intergalactic language of “hippie”.

All you need is love.

[...]

Love, love me do?

[...]

I want to hold your hand.

Do you think I traveled from Arturos 9 for heavy petting in the back of my dad’s Galaxie 500? Grab your primitive feet handles and prepare to initiate “Operation: Infinite Uranus” gangbang protocols in 3…..2…….1……

Help!

You’re not from around here, are you? 

So, you’ve purchased their major label product, while they rape their artists with accounting shenanigans and suddenly copying your CDs to your computer is illegal. By that logic, every album that I recorded to cassette when I was a kid makes me a criminal that many times over. Even worse, I sometimes record television shows with a VCR and watch them at a later time. Should I turn myself in now, or wait for the media police to show up?

As a former musician who still has contacts in the industry, I’ve been on the fence when it comes to the downloading and sharing of MP3 files. I understand both sides of the argument – the artists who understandably don’t want to give away their product and the blurred lines of sharing music among friends or *gasp* even downloading MP3s off the intarwebs. I generally lean towards protecting the artist because the downloaders are generally a bunch of freeloading punks who want something for nothing, whether it’s music, software, movies or some other commodity.

However, when it comes to the major labels, they deserve every bit of what they’re getting now. Even if you set aside the fact that most of what they put out is absolute crap, the industry itself has a rich history of abusing its artists beyond anything most reasonable people would believe. Don’t mistake all their lawsuits as some type of valiant effort to protect their artists. They’ve spent their careers financially gang banging their artists (most of the time against their will), so the last thing they’re trying to do is help them. The majors are trying to save their own asses, and those are some sorry asses that aren’t worth saving.

More from the Economist (via Insty).

That’s just one of the problems the dinosaurs face. The chickens are coming home to roost for the majors. Since their official decline began in the 90s, the best rock/power-pop product has been released by the indies and the mid-level labels with nationwide distribution. The majors have failed on so many levels – from the quality of the garbage they put out to their own refusal to accept and embrace technological shifts – that there will be no official day of mourning when they’re referred to solely in past tense.

UPDATE: As See-Dub notes in the comments, the facts from the WaPo story aren’t exactly as the case happened. LaShawn Barber chronicles the whole thing for you. This is what I get for trusting the Old Media.

While the whole being-prosecuted-for-transferring-your-own-CDs-to-digital-format was inaccurate, my comments about the major labels remains. They suck out loud, even if this story was wrong.

I don’t mean to ridicule as their hearts were in the right place (God bless them). But.. but.. Twisted Sister!? Did anyone even go see them in early 80′s when they were “popular”?

Besides carrying the “metal flag” against the PMRC, what has Dee Snider ever done besides host some VH1 shows?

Given that my musical taste is limited to mostly country, alt-country and it’s derivatives, these reviews will probably will probably, in-turn, have limited interest.

Son Volt – The Search

Rating: 1 Peanut Butter and ‘Nanner Sandwich (out of 4)

After Jay Farrar and the Son Volt gang layed a tremendous turd in 2005 with Okemah and the Melody of Riot, I had high hopes for this new release. It was rumored that Jay was going back to what made him one of the greatest songwriters of our time. Unfortunately it was just a rumor as we were delivered another dose of falsetto-Farrar coupled with poorly-structured political angst.

Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

Rating: 1.5 Peanut Butter and ‘Nanner Sandwiches

If you believe that Jeff Tweedy doesn’t miss Jay Bennet, then I am sure that you also probably believe that Algore richly deserved his Nobel Peace Prize for perpetrating a hoax on the simple-minded Earth-worship crowd. While Sky Blue Sky is a little more listenable than the previous cure for insomnia A Ghost is Born, it’s still lacking the musical depth and originality that we saw on the first three classic Wilco releases. Even though I would rather listen to it than say.. I don’t know.. go to the dentist, it definitely does not receive steady play in my personal rotation.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Easy Tiger

Rating: 3 Peanut Butter and ‘Nanner Sandwiches

I have always said that an average Ryan Adams record is still better than 98.2% of anything else on the shelves today, and I am sticking with that statement. Granted, Easy Tiger isn’t the strongest release in his vast catalog but it does, however, further my theory that Ryan took a trip to the Crossroads years ago and offered the Devil a great deal on his soul. Yes, there are a few fillers on this CD but the quality tunes quickly overshadow any musical missteps.

Dig it.