Fact #80219
When:
Short story:
When Twisted Sister play in San Antonio, Texas, USA, the city has recently passed an anti-rock music ordinance [in response to pressure from the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), to prevent the appearance of artists who sing about such topics as necrophilia, paedophilia or bestiality. A group of local dignitaries monitor the show but later, in the band's dressing room, they mingle happily with the group.
Full article:
Jay Jay French (guitarist, Twisted Sister) : When we played in San Antonio, the city sent down a review team to monitor the show. It was, like, members of The PTA and a local Christian group.
The PMRC situation had gone beyond the labelling issue into communities rising up and deciding to protect their youth from the destructive effects of a band like Twisted Sister.
Our agent was told by the promoter that a law had been passed stating that if an act sang songs about having sex with children, corpses or animals, or performed those acts onstage, they would be forbidden from playing in San Antonio. I think the trigger point for that law was the W.A.S.P. song Fuck Like A Beast.
These people were completely out of touch with reality.
We said we didn't think that applied to us because we didn't do any of those things. He said, 'That's exactly what I told them.'
Texas, aside from this anomaly, was a heavy-metal-hard-rock heaven. Kids loved it. A year earlier we'd done a signing at Tower Records in Texas with Ratt and four thousand people showed up. It was the biggest signing in the history of the state.
At the end of the night in San Antonio members of the PTA and the religious group came backstage to meet us and get our autographs. So this Christian guy comes up and he said, 'I have to tell you, you'all curse a little too much but you're pretty entertaining.'
I said, 'Are you saying that you like Twisted Sister?'
He said, 'Yeah, you're pretty good.'
I told him, 'look, don't you ever fuckin' tell that to anybody. That's the last thing I need. You could destroy our reputation. Word gets out that you like us, we're finished.'
(Source ; interview with Johnny Black, for Classic Rock, September 2011)
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The PMRC situation had gone beyond the labelling issue into communities rising up and deciding to protect their youth from the destructive effects of a band like Twisted Sister.
Our agent was told by the promoter that a law had been passed stating that if an act sang songs about having sex with children, corpses or animals, or performed those acts onstage, they would be forbidden from playing in San Antonio. I think the trigger point for that law was the W.A.S.P. song Fuck Like A Beast.
These people were completely out of touch with reality.
We said we didn't think that applied to us because we didn't do any of those things. He said, 'That's exactly what I told them.'
Texas, aside from this anomaly, was a heavy-metal-hard-rock heaven. Kids loved it. A year earlier we'd done a signing at Tower Records in Texas with Ratt and four thousand people showed up. It was the biggest signing in the history of the state.
At the end of the night in San Antonio members of the PTA and the religious group came backstage to meet us and get our autographs. So this Christian guy comes up and he said, 'I have to tell you, you'all curse a little too much but you're pretty entertaining.'
I said, 'Are you saying that you like Twisted Sister?'
He said, 'Yeah, you're pretty good.'
I told him, 'look, don't you ever fuckin' tell that to anybody. That's the last thing I need. You could destroy our reputation. Word gets out that you like us, we're finished.'
(Source ; interview with Johnny Black, for Classic Rock, September 2011)