Monday, July 7, 2014

July: A Musically Auspicious Month For Ronald Reagan?



Basing from his “contentious” 8-year presidency, can one safely conclude that July is a “musically auspicious” month for the former US President Ronald Reagan? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Whether you love him or hate him, it seems like the month of July – at least from my own perspective – was a really auspicious month during the 8-year presidency of former US President Ronald Reagan.  I mean it is the very month that any big event that could either make or break him seems to “go viral” during the pre user-friendly online social network days of the 1980s. 

Given the largely political nature of punk rock music, it might be more than a coincidence that Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedy’s chose July 3, 1983 to launch the Rock Against Reagan tour. By the way, the punk rock extravaganza Rock Against Reagan tour also includes The Dicks, Crucifucks, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.) and MDC which probably where MDC played their iconic Elvis in the Sudetenland (or was it Elvis in the Rhineland?). 

And who can forget that big, blue 1,960-page Ronald Reagan Pornography Report that was launched way back in July 1986 that many criticized as being a colossal waste of American Taxpayers’ money because it proved that pornography is not that harmful to the average person. Speaking of former US President Ronald Reagan’s rather “low opinion” on music making during the first half of his presidency, remember when he used the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act / OBRA to drastically cut the funding of public high school music programs that lead to the over-hyping of the “Mozart Effect” during the Clinton years?