Killing in the name of...

May 17th – Not sure, even now, where it is but I do know there’s a line that a person crosses that takes them from being a fan to being a fucking nuisance – forgive my French. I mean, do we think that Mr. Chapman well and truly crossed that line? I’d say yes. What about the guy who attacked Hugh Jackman with a razor…bit over the top in the fan-love basement? Or how about when Robert Baldo shot Rebecca Schaeffer? A bit precious? Probably. How about the belief, stated by one such, that; “Every celebrity needs a stalker”?

Is this true? Do we think they deserve the treatment because they’ve put themselves into the public domain and by that very fact have forfeited the right to anonymity, privacy and discretion? 

I find it a bit rich that the press who are railing about celebrity stalkers are the same ones who are publishing yet more pictures of some sleb or other whom they no doubt stalked in order to get the photo. I mean how many photos of Madonna or Beckham do we need? Is not everyone else, like me, sick of the sight of them staring out of every second periodical because they had the temerity to wear jeans on a Sunday or go out shopping without wearing full make-up or some other heinous crime against stardom?

It’s often the case that bands are vilified by their fan base if they dare deviate from the album or single or film genre that first brought them to prominence. In the film/TV business they call it being typecast and the same holds true in the music business. You’re only as good as your last release, and that’s the one the fans want to hear. I've been to many a gig where the crowd have actually whistled and jeered at bands that have tried to incorporate new material into a show that, according to the fans, should be riding on the coat-tails of their back catalogue. The three times I've seen Rush in concert have all had their fair share of ribald comment from assembled groups in the crowd whenever they introduce anything that isn't Big Money or Freewill. It’s as if the fans want their heroes preserved in amber; something that’ll always be the same, won’t alter the memory they carry of their first contact. And in most cases this is enough…it’s OK for them. That’s why they buy and play the record or DVD or whatever because it’s always the same. It’s when that first flush of adoration is spoilt by ,new work, or new friends or a new venture, when the song doesn't remain the same, that folk can get…well, upset…cross really.

On this day in 1966, Bob Dylan dared to introduce an electric guitar into his set in Manchester and someone shouted out;

“Judas!”

at him.

A folk purist was how the perpetrator was described…Judas, apparently, returned to the farm he had bought with the silver he obtained for betraying Christ, and deliberately fell upon a sharpened stake…bit like a BIG knife…and killed himself. Gosh, some folk, eh? I mean, it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, y’ know…just a bit of music, not life and death…Oh, hang on, strike that.