There is some buzz in the Rightosphere suggesting that the crowd for Barack Obama’s big weekend rally in Portland was inflated by his warm-up act, an indie rock band called The Decemberists. NewsBusters and Michael Goldfarb likely overstate the band’s draw, even for a free show in their hometown, while TIME’s Ana Marie Cox likely understates it.
NRO’s Jim Geraghty is probably closest to the mark; the band was likely a boost, but not a huge one. He even notes the band’s antiwar tune, “Sixteen Military Wives,” though the lyrics he quotes suggest that frontman Colin Meloy has about as much time for the likes of Alec Baldwin and Bill Maher as he does the Bush Administration. While the left-leaning politics of the band members is well-known, they usually do not take center stage, as they do with musicians like Billy Bragg. I also think Geraghty makes too much of the flag lapel pin in the video, which is clearly an homage to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.
Bonus: Given that many pw readers also like the classics, here is the band with a live encore of ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky.”
Did anyone else notice the Obama plug in the season finale of House? It was so … prominate (a bumper sticker in the back of a bathroom stall that was otherwise completely white/clean), it ticked me off.
My daughter introduced me to the Decemberists music a couple of years ago. I have to say I really like their ballad style. But, like most other musician types, they play one note politically.
Only familiar with some of their earlier albums but never applied their lyrics politically. However, as with everything else, liberals tend to drain the pleasure away from many things.
Not all musicians are liberal, though. My son is one musician who is quite conservative, and says he has learned to keep his mouth shut around colleagues when it comes to politics.
‘Did anyone else notice the Obama plug in the season finale of House?’
No, ever since NBC did the ‘George Bush hate black people’ sometime after Katrina I turned TeeWee off for good; I found TeeWee was making me stupid in a vacuous sort of way.
Besides which useful idiots are nothing but insane on youth juice steroids.
– Wonkette writing for Time, the National Inquirer on glossy paper. Now she can get her “take it up the ass” message to an even smaller audience than she had on the web.
Music is a language all it’s own.
I HATE musicians who try to cram their politics into it. Music is it’s own politics.
Politics do not belong in music, and when you hear it in music, it is just about the same as those Obama posters that Dan (am I right this time, Dan?) called attention to the other day.
Politics in music is about the equivalent of “Ebonics”. It’s like pissing on your own leg.
I just rolled my eyes and MovedOn.
This is just another indication of silly season that this is even a story. I like the Decembrists, and own their albums, but I doubt that on their own they have played to any crowds larger than a few thousand people. If you ask most folks about them, you will probably get a blank stare in return. This is hardly like U2 opened for Obama. Those that see this as some sort of left wing media conspiracy are delusional.
Why is somebody plugging a presidential candidate with a bathroom bumper sticker on a show about remodeling?
Or worse, a vague reference to Tsarist Russia.
I was on a road trip from PA to TX and my riding companion made me listen to the Decemberists. Wow do they suck it hard. If you want to make political music, fine. I’ll take HR from the Bad Brains or Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys railing against “the system” any day over a pretentious dork like Melloy.
Obama’s and the Decembrists’ fan demographics overlap too perfectly to make any distinciton. In a city without black people (except the Trail Blazers), an Obama rally and a Decembrists show crowd are indistinguishable, except by size.
Obama should outdraw them. He probably did. However, the idea that a world-renowned ex-local pseudo-hipster band can’t draw a huge fraction of 75,000 to a free outdoor summer show in Portland — preposterous. I live in a disturbingly Portland-like town where I’ve seen thousands standing around in a rain storm waiting to see a free Bright Eyes set, long before dude was famous — and this isn’t his home town.
Also: Whitestock.
Yeah but he Decemberists are way cool. Didn’t the Arcade Fire play at a rally already? Barack is like, totally indie man. Now all he needs to cement his hipsterdom are The Shins. Or maybe Beulah – who have a song that has some very Barackish lyrics:
You’re just so hip
You open the gates of heaven
being cool, is that all that you do?
I don’t know as I’d call that a classic but they did a decent job with it – too many older songs people ignore, bands should do a lot more covers.