Free the West Memphis Three
(Aces & Eights/Koch)
by Scott Hefflon
It’s the kind of stuff that makes your blood boil. The kind of stuff that makes you wonder how some people can remember to breath when they’re this stupid. The stuff that makes you wonder why an outraged mob doesn’t saunter over, slap a few people around, and take all the bad people’s toys away before sending them to bed with no dinner.
This particular outrage (not that there aren’t plenty of mind-bogglingly stupid people who, for some reason, are not only allowed to walk the planet, but are allowed to vote, bear children, appear on the news making total and complete ignorant asses of themselves, basically embarrassing the rest of us for sharing a country with these morons and having yet to figure out any humane way to either get rid of them, or hopefully find some way to make them quiet, unobtrusive, productive members of society) is the case with The West Memphis Three. Seeing as there’s no way I could convey all the info (and the two HBO Paradise Lost specials did a better job than I ever could), go to www.wm3.org and realize that we as a species have a long way to go…
It’s not surprising that a lot of top-notch artists would donate their time and energy to a cause like this. Dangerously stupid ultra-conservatives in positions of power persecuting teens for wearing black concert shirts and reading Stephen King novels? What’s not to be outraged by? And while a great CD is nice, I think pipebombs’d be more effective, huh? Better yet, how about education and a little cultural pressure? Bigots and racists and fascists (and so on) should be sternly told that this kind of talk and behavior is just not going to be tolerated anymore, and while that’s intolerance of intolerant people, common sense oughtta pretty clearly point to who oughtta be encouraged to sit the fuck down and keep quiet. And read a little, ya ignorant shithead…
Yuck, sorry. Hard not to get riled up at just how back-ass-wards some people still are by the 21th Century. Bands who’ve done their part: Steve Earle, Rocket from the Crypt, L7, Supersuckers (once alone and once with Eddie Vedder), Joe Strummer & The Long Beach Dub All Stars, Tom Waits, Fastballs’ Tony Scalzo, Zeke (covering Iron Maiden’s “Wrathchild”), Kelley Deal (doing a seething acoustic stumble of Pantera’s “Fucking Hostile”), The John Doe Thing, Mark Lanegan, Murder City Devils (covering The Misfits “She”), Nashville Pussy (covering AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”), and Killing Joke.
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