The biographer of icons such as Bruce Springsteen and the Who and once one of the most influential rock critics in America, Dave Marsh has devoted a good part of the last decade to a less glamorous but far more wide-reaching pursuit: the right of free speech.
”I was brought into the musical world as a result of my association with the MC5, who were harassed for making a record (`Kick Out the Jams`) that still can`t be played on the air; they were the 2 Live Crew of 1969,” Marsh says.
So when rock lyrics came under renewed attack in the early to mid-`80s by such groups as the PTA and Tipper Gore`s Parents Music Resource Center, ”I said to my friends at Rock and Roll Confidential, `This is a story that we must pursue avidly,` and I`ve been the boy who cried wolf ever since.”
Rock and Roll Confidential, a monthly newsletter that Marsh edits, has become the focal point of the anti-censorship battle in the music industry.
It has spun off a number of projects by Marsh and friends, such as the
”You`ve Got a Right to Rock” pamphlet, an indispensable overview of efforts to stifle rock and rap that identifies the key censors and their tactics ($4, available from Rock and Roll Confidential, Box 341305, Los Angeles, Calif. 90034), and ”50 Ways to Fight Censorship” (Thunder`s Mouth Press, $5.95), which details how citizens can make their voices heard on the issue.
Words can be deadly, Marsh writes in the introduction to ”50 Ways,” but ”the point is that the only way to build the kinds of lives that free people ought to have is to allow those words and thoughts to be heard, in all their danger. . . . Every other avenue involves deception. And that leads to corruption, and that leads to worse lives for all of us. . . .”
His efforts coincide with a growing movement in Chicago, spearheaded by the likes of Guild Books proprietor Lew Rosenbaum and activist Mary Morello, to raise awareness about the issue. Marsh will speak on the topic at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Dearborn Station as part of the Printers Row Book Fair.
Marsh says he took up the crusade even though ”it`s not my pathway and it isn`t a way to get rich-I wrote this book for one-third the money of the smallest advance I ever received. And it`s exhausting because you have to keep lifting the whole situation up by its bootstraps every couple of hours. But at some point, you have to make a decision that you can`t live and function if this is going on.
”I`m a white 40-year-old guy who has a certain lifestyle, with a lot of privilege, but that`s not everybody`s story. You start thinking about life from the point of view of a black kid, of a woman, of a variety of other people, and for me it`s like I`ve got to do this because there are people who are paying a lot bigger price than I`ll ever pay.”
When pressure from the PMRC prompted the record industry to voluntarily put warning stickers on records with explicit lyrics in 1985, Marsh knew there was no turning back.
”The record industry is the Iraqi air force of the censorship battle. They`ve had their tail between their legs for eight years,” he says.
And the problem, Marsh warns, has only grown more insidious.
”Five years ago, when someone said `I`m going to put a label on your record,` people freaked out. Now when a young band comes up, they expect that their record might be labeled and they certainly expect the record company to review the lyric content and tell them whether their lyrics are acceptable or not. That`s a climate of thought suppression that`s inimical to free speech.” Yet Marsh sees a glimmer of hope.
”When you look at what`s happening in Chicago this month, the groups that are starting to form, the fact that some people are making a commitment to at least trying to change the situation, to try to put out the other point of view, there`s a lot of energy and strength in that.
”It would be a mistake to think that anyone other than Tipper Gore runs the music business in terms of what is permissible to put into a record store. But it`s also true that she would run more of it and run it more unimpeded without Rock and Roll Confidential and without the various people we`ve worked with. So we`re making progress.”
But victory, Marsh says wearily, is far from imminent.
”The majority of Americans are in favor of free speech and also in favor of things that constitute censorship because they`ve been misinformed or brainwashed into thinking that it`s reasonable not to be allowed to say certain things. I think if I put my perception of what censorship is to a referendum right now that I would not win.
”Do I want to spend the rest of my life doing this? No. Do I think that I`ll have to? Yeah.”
– While rock fans wait for the next Bruce Springsteen album, they can get a small fix of the Boss and entertain their kids in the bargain with ”For Our Children” (Walt Disney Records).
Proceeds from the compilation of 20 original and traditional children`s songs performed by 21 rock artists-and one ringer, Meryl Streep-will benefit pediatric AIDS research.
Among the highlights are Springsteen`s playful ”Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips,” Bob Dylan essaying ”This Old Man” in his finest tubercular rasp, and Little Richard pounding his way through ”Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
Also among those performing are Paul McCartney, Sting, Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, Elton John, Ziggy Marley, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, James Taylor and Brian Wilson.
– The pioneering thrash-metal group Anthrax and king rappers Public Enemy were in town this week to film a video of ”Bring the Noise” with the hot Chicago-based H Gun production team.
Anthrax`s Scott Ian and Public Enemy`s Chuck D trade verses, punctuated by Flavor Flav`s inimitable interjections, on a lean, guitar-driven version of the Public Enemy anthem, which will be included on Anthrax`s new 12-track EP, ”Attack of the Killer B`s” (Island), and a new Public Enemy album, tentatively scheduled for release in August.
– Compared with the revelatory clarity of the recently released ”Robert Johnson-The Complete Recordings,” the sound quality on the most recent major release in Columbia/Legacy`s Roots `n` Blues series, ”Bessie Smith-The Complete Recordings Vol. 1,” recorded more than a decade earlier, is somewhat disappointing.
Nonetheless, the 38 performances on these two CDs, the first of a projected four-volume series, are essential to any complete understanding of the blues, and, for that matter, of virtually every blues-based female singer who followed Smith, from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin.
Her voice evoked a world of haunting despair and electrifying carnality, mature beyond its years even on these early sides, recorded in 1923-24.
