Buy this on Discogs
True story - it’s just gone midnight (27 June) I’m writing this in my kitchen currently waiting for an emergency locksmith to come out to open the jammed kitchen door. I’ve been stuck in my kitchen since 9.30pm.
During Donald Trump’s recent state visit to the UK, I saw a couple of long-distance friends of mine put posts on social media which attacked those who were protesting his visit. Some comments even described such protestors as an embarrassment to the country. I took to my Facebook page to back the protestors and warn against normalising Trump by demonising those protesting against him. One of my friends replied that their issue with the protestors was not their antipathy towards Trump as a person (which they agreed with) but rather the lack of respect towards the office of the President of the United States. As ever, arguments went round in circles as people weighed in to reason that there was no point in any of us showing deference to the office of President while the current incumbent does so much to shame it. However, in listening to this track, I’ve come up with a rationale for despising Trump while respecting him and all other holders of the office of President of the United States. I take my hat off to them all for their courage and willingness to take on a job in which someone, somewhere will invariably be plotting to kill them.
In the West, the shorthand for political assassination usually leads us almost unthinkingly towards the United States. Four Presidents have died from assassination while still serving their terms: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy.
Newsflash - the locksmith is here and trying to get the door open. It didn’t work from the hall side, now he’s squeezed through the kitchen window and is trying to release it from my side. Will we ever get out of here?
1:05am 27 June - the locksmith got me out about 20 minutes ago. Time for bed. I’ll be back with more stories of Presidential brushes with death tomorrow. Goodnight.
2:28pm - I am sitting in my garden, I haven’t closed a door in my house since last night. It’s doubtful that I will do so again for as long as I live here. Anyway...
Ronald Reagan is the only serving president to survive having been shot. Indeed his near-death In 1981 marks the last real in person assassination attempt on a US President, although I can’t remember any coverage about the grenade thrown at George W. Bush in Tbilisi in 2005. Gerald Ford had to endure 2 separate attempts on his life in the space of 3 weeks in September 1975. The first of which
saw him reaching out to shake hands with his would-be assassin, a former follower of Charles
Manson, who, luckily for Ford, had failed to load a bullet into the chamber of her gun.
There have been other attempts on Presidents’ lives since the early 80s, though these have mostly involved people taking a punt on firing guns at The White House in the hope of getting lucky. In his 1996 book, Downsize This, Michael Moore cites CIA sources that reveal Bill Clinton received up to 1500 death threats a year, and this was long before social media amplified such behaviour. It says a lot about the country that its political class can have guns fired at them at presidential, Governor, Senatorial and Congressional level and STILL takes no steps to minimise gun violence. If it won’t protect its leaders, what chance do America’s infant schoolers have?
So, musicians are spoilt for choice when it comes to using American assassinations as the context for their music. However, the JFK murder remains the default setting, probably because of the web of questions and conspiracies around it. Trinity aren’t (isn’t) worried about any of that in No John No, instead the track focuses on the incident itself and the sense of shock and disbelief that an on the ground news-reporter would have gone through had they been witnessing the events. Between the recreated vignettes and snatches of mimicked Jackie Kennedy reactions, we get dated Italiano piano figures, Darth Vader-style breathing and cascading bleeps that sound like the desperate attempts to get information about the shooting out to a stunned and disbelieving world. It is only as the track enters its final moments that we realise that the breathing is Kennedy’s and the bleeps fall away to a single, flatlining tone on his heart-rate monitor at Parkland Hospital.
To his lifelong surprise and pride, John Peel twice played a walk-on role during the story of America’s Camelot years. Shortly after moving to Dallas, Peel went to see Kennedy’s campaign roll into town during the election process of 1960. As Kennedy mingled with the crowds, Peel shook his hand and wished him luck. Surprised to hear a British accent in Dallas, Kennedy began talking to Peel about his background and asking what had brought him to the States and how he was getting on. In Peel’s telling of the story, Kennedy pulled off that politicians’ skill that can make the person they
are talking to genuinely feel like they are the most important person that the politician has ever met. Bill Clinton was similarly credited with this skill, which perhaps explains a lot when considering his
and Kennedy’s private lives. JFK posed for a couple of photos for Peel and although he couldn’t vote for him, left the young Englishman a card-carrying Democrat for the remainder of his time in America.
To clarify his remarks at the end of the video, Peel did not witness the assassination but he went down to Dealey Plaza for the aftermath and after blagging his way into a press conference by claiming to be a journalist with the Liverpool Echo, he saw Lee Harvey Oswald being arraigned for the Press as chief suspect for the assassination. I will let Peel relate the full story and colour for you in the video below which features a 1996 telephone interview with him. The video also includes footage from the Abraham Zapruder cinefilm of the assassination including the notorious frame 313 where Kennedy is fatally shot in the head with a second bullet, however this image is negavitised which dilutes the impact somewhat for any squeamish viewers.
A few more links for you. In 1993, Peel was one of a number of talking heads in a documentary about UK reaction to the assassination.
For conspiracy theorists, I present both of Alex Cox’s introductions for the brilliant 1974 film, The Parallax View which uses the glut of assassinations from the previous decade as the inspiration for a thriller about a shadowy corporation which seeks to recruit assassins and, most crucially, “patsies”or political killings. The recruitment montage scene is one of the most thrillingly realised sequences in 1970s cinema. Cox’s 1993 intro as part of a 30th anniversary night on BBC 2 dedicated to Kennedy features plenty of detail about conspiracy theories, potential culprits and elements which can be found in The Parallax View such as military-industrial complexes and the amazing number of deaths that afflicted witnesses and (especially) journalists in the immediate years after the assassination. His 1988 intro for the much missed Moviedrome is 10 minutes shorter but devastating in its concise summation of what the assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King meant both
for America and the world.
The Robert Kennedy assassination effectively tipped 1960s youth from the peace and love optimism of the previous 18 months to a more revolutionary centred mindset. One which it was far easier for establishments to quell, through brute force and implementation of the law on a movement which lacked both coherent strategy or leaders who could galvanise the numbers needed to fully effect lasting change. Peel was broadcasting on Night Ride while Bobby was still fighting for his life. His first edition of Top Gear in the weekend after RFK’s death has a good half an hour of material available through the John Peel wiki and includes mention of letters received thanking Peel for his words about the Kennedy assassination, which vied for listeners’ attention with a competition to give producer, Bernie Andrews new tortoise a name.
“That’s my mate, John. He’s President of the United States now, you know.”
Videos courtesy of Webbie (thanks as always) and Fillerzine.
No comments:
Post a Comment