VIDEO: Punk Rock and the CIA | The Mad Genius of Miles Copeland
"What if I told you that the CIA could have in part been behind the global explosion of punk rock?"
“He seriously thought that Miles, Stewart and I were part of some conspiracy hatched by my father and backed by the CIA.” - Ian Copeland, referring to Bernie Rhodes, onetime manager of the Clash
This video has information that's new to me about Miles Copeland III, namely that bands who worked with him were suspicious about what he was really up to.
It's kind of pathetic that those boomers who thought they were rebelling with their hairspray, tattoos, spikes and leather were just fashion victims of the same establishment that the hippies were.
I remember Johnny Rotten taunting an audience member from the stage when I saw the Pistols play a KROQ gig in the early 2000s. It went something like this: "'ello hippie. You're a few years late, hippie. Go away, hippie!"
Hippie style was created for the sole purpose of discrediting the anti-war movement. It's funny that most of the songs they listened to were about sex, love, drugs and tuning out rather than protesting the war based on lies that was Vietnam.
After the JFK assassination, even Bob Dylan stopped being overtly political.
And, ironically, the band that helped society cope with the JFK assassination the most was the Beatles, whose John Lennon eventually turned against the war machine and was killed for it in 1980.
Most of what I've gathered about this has come from Stiv Bators interviews and David McGowan's Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon Laurel Canyon Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippy Dream. You can read the chapter about punk and new wave here, just type CTRL+F and enter "copeland” once you get there.
You can kind of tell how fake these people were by the fact that they are all now establishment, pro-war, pro-mandate, pro-censorship, Russiagating, demented Joe Biden-worshipping, Democratic Party tools.
I love punk rock and much of what was done in the '60s, but I feel that the true anti-establishment rock 'n' roll was made in the '50s, before "the day the music died,” and before Elvis joined the Army.
"And, ironically, the band that helped society cope with the JFK assassination the most was the Beatles, whose John Lennon eventually turned against the war machine and was killed for it in 1980."
...not forgetting Paul McCartney, who turned against it sooner and suffered that same fate some 14 years earlier.