extended playhouse 3

Sometime conspirologist X. Sharks DeSpot once circulated a parody of the infamous samizdat conspiracy theory A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File that implicated Laugh-In’s Rowan & Martin (instead of Aristotle Onassis) in the global conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy, with Goldie Hawn their brainwashed pawn. He was joking, but eventually felt the need to claim responsibility in case someone took his jape at face value.

This is the problem inherent in conspiracy theory: the plausible is usually drowned out in the implausible, yet the concoction is swallowed whole by recipients who insist their capacity for skeptical interpretation is undiminished. The Covert War Against Rock attempts to raise numerous questions about the deaths of Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Tupac Shakur among others, but the best conspiracy researchers know when to leave a question unanswered (e.g. the late Jim Keith and Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, the editors of 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time). Alex Constantine makes too many quick conclusions without reexamining the evidence with the same skepticism that drew the questions in the first place.

The book’s best (and most chilling) argument, the alteration of John Lennon’s stolen diaries to smear his memory, is all too believable, but while describing this plot Constantine incidentally lauds author Geoffrey Giuliano as an authoritative, reliable source on the Beatles. Giuliano subsequently published a book (Lennon in America) based on those selfsame questionable diaries, but even before that had among the poorest reputations of Beatle biographers (to put it mildly). This suggests that most of Constantine’s research came from Mae Brussell-types whose interest in popular culture is peripheral.

Admittedly, misfortune is too frequent to those prominent in popular culture to be entirely dismissed, but the book simply fails in its premise that a “covert war” is behind these deaths. The likely murder of Brian Jones (not in itself a new argument) doesn’t seem to have the government’s touch; in asserting that Jimi Hendrix was murdered it’s made unlikely that anything but greed was the motivation.

The Covert War Against Rock loses credibility for who it fails to mention: Stevie Rae Vaughn, Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger, Brian Epstein, John Belushi, Karen Carpenter, Tom Fogerty, and especially Bill Hicks: all dead at relatively young ages, all statistically ignored, which suggests that the premature deaths of many gifted musicians do not necessarily amount to a conspiracy. After all, The E! True Hollywood Story, the cable television version of the Darwin Awards, has made a — what else? — killing exploiting the untimely deaths of actors and musicians, most by their own hand. Their coverage on Covert War “target” Michael Hutchence played similar to their story on the recent suicide of actor David Strickland.

If there was a competent concerted effort to wipe out influential musicians after Nixon’s inauguration then surely provocative and influential acts like Prince, the Clash, and Neil Young (especially after “Ohio”) would not have escaped Their notice. You’d have to swallow that the government was sophisticated enough to pull off such a series of assassinations yet incapable of discerning the most effective targets. Hedonists like Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Mama Cass might have talked about social revolution but for the most part could not divert their attention from keeping their own lives in order.

The career of Mama Cass, although more successful than those of her contemporaries in the Mamas and the Papas, was not spectacular enough to warrant the establishment’s concern. I half-expected Covert War to use the Chuck Barris ‘unauthorized autobiography’ Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (which suggested Barris was a government operative while producing TV shows as an elaborate cover) as source material providing further suggestion that her death was arranged, since the two were well acquainted with each other.

Even taking the documented meddling by organized crime into account, the divisive atmosphere of the 1960s would be enough to justify an examination of the government’s actions. Had Covert War submitted its closing arguments with Phil Ochs and Cass Elliott, the idea would have been much more palatable. Instead, the book ends with speculations that the hanging death of INXS vocalist Michael Hutchence, officially ruled suicide, was a hit enabled by his girlfriend’s ex, Band Aid czar Bob Geldof. Whatever tenuous grip Covert War had is lost here.

Their name was reputedly inspired by XTC’s July 1979 tour of Australia, but that was the only concession INXS made to innovation. They were essentially a stadium rock band, somewhat more lively than the 1970s variety but hardly of serious influence. Correspondingly, as he became older, Hutchence was becoming more conservative, not less, and a bizarre video for their single “Beautiful Girl” attacking the fashion industry that had long supplied him with sexual partners only confirmed the change (for example, he mysteriously dumped well-mannered model Helena Christensen for Geldof’s obnoxious ex-wife, TV hostess Paula Yates: there’s the unexplained conspiracy).

Yates had recently borne a daughter to Hutchence, but sought greater custody of the children from her broken marriage to Geldof. The prolonged custody struggle led to accusations of foul play, not entirely unwarranted, but the misfortunes amounted to dirty tricks, not death threats. Hutchence was also beset by numerous other personal problems, well documented by E! but mostly ignored by Constantine. It was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald that Hutchence was technically bankrupt at the time of his death, with one of the biggest liabilities against his estate “a personal guarantee Hutchence gave to cover the costs associated with Yates’ custody battle with former husband Bob Geldof, estimated to run into millions of dollars.” So Covert War fails to make clear the motive for taking Hutchence out. He was in no danger of reclaiming the limited international fame he enjoyed in the 1980s (so no political motive is credible). The struggle with Geldof appeared to be a losing battle, which rules out revenge as a reason. Brain damage that resulted from a recent motorcycle accident had largely robbed him of his sense of taste, and prescription antidepressants were found in his bloodstream (a friend later noted that Hutchence took Prozac “like candy”). Few rulings of suicide can ever be conclusive, but the lack of any cohesive argument to the contrary, what other conclusion can be drawn? There is a difference between murder and assassination, and even if Hutchence was a homicide victim, he was no martyr. The same can be said of many (if not all) of the musicians profiled in The Covert War Against Rock, even the ones whose lives were more significant than their deaths.