New Controversial Music Genre Emerges Called Tea Party Rock - Political, Satirical Rock Music

Sept. 13, 2010 - PRLog -- A new genre of political, satirical music called Tea Party Rock, inspired by the Tea Party Movement, has just emerged through a release of a 12 track CD appropriately titled, Tea Party Rock. It is the creation of an attorney-activist-musician. The CD was recorded by We the People.

   The founder of the genre, record label and the We the People band is Bob Allen, hardly a household name. “I’m not even a household name in my own household”, notes Allen. Allen is an attorney by trade, who has since retired from the profession, voluntarily he always notes. Allen states, “ As a political science and history major in college and with a love for music, I decided to merge the two concepts to come up with something that has a little bit of a novelty, a classic rock sound, satire and current events all rolled into one.”

  Tea Party Rock utilizes clever lyrics, often biting, controversial and even harsh at times with comedy. Explicit or inappropriate lyrics are never used. As Allen notes, “If you can’t be funny without using foul language, then you can’t communicate and you aren’t very funny either.” Each song utilizes current events to tell a specific story and convey a particular message. Allen claims, “With the upcoming mid-term elections, the message of each song is quite relevant."

  The targeted audience for this new genre of music is people who are political junkies and activists who follow politics and current events very closely who also love music and want to hear a political message contained in a song. Allen, who wrote the songs, stated, "We wanted to make the title of each song convey the message contained in greater detail in the lyrics. For Example, Tea Party Blues discusses the emerging Tea Party political movement and Don't Tread on Me is the rallying cry of the Tea Party Movement, the slogan of which dates back to the Revolutionary War period."  

 Allen’s personal favorite is Obama Mobile, which discusses the government takeover of the auto industry using lyrical images of a fictitious car that does not run correctly, the Obama Mobile, all decked out with the president’s image on the outside of the vehicle. “There’s nothin’ like the feel of an Obama Mobile”, laughs Allen.  

  Stand Up for Our Country is a patriotic tune that is a call to action for the average folks to get involved in the political process. Other tracks include, Deficit Blues and Government Bailout, both of which are self-explanatory.

 Exorcism Time is about the story teller/singer being upset at his congressman for ignoring the wishes of his constituents.  Allen revealed where he came up with this bizarre notion for a song. “I called my congressman to find out what his position was on the Heath Care bill last year. I start speaking to an aide who was giving me Orwellian Newspeak that the congressman hadn’t made up his mind.  I was being lied to.  My congressman had already made a public statement in support of it. After I hung up the phone in disgust, I blurted out to myself that my congressman needed a good exorcism. And thus, a song was born.”

  Other tracks includes Live Free or Die (the motto of New Hampshire), which talks about every facet of one’s life being dictated to by the state, Psalm 2010 (a gospel sounding tune that sings, ‘Obama is my shepherd’), and Tale of Barack (self-explanatory).

 The last track, American Trilogy 2010, is a take-off on Elvis Presley’s American Trilogy that he recorded live in
the 1970s. According to Allen, he got the idea when he attended a concert in South Carolina last December and was listening to an Elvis impersonator do American Trilogy. Dixieland was omitted from the trilogy and replaced with God Bless America due to political correctness in his view and this gave him the idea of doing a spoof on political correctness. “Here I am in Dixieland and the first song of the trilogy is omitted.  I so had it with this political correctness insanity, which is an assault on free speech, that I e-mailed the concert promoter and told them I would never attend another one of their concerts again. My wife thought I had lost my mind for getting so upset”.

 The message is clearly conservative in nature. When asked if he thought there was a market for conservative rock music, Allen had no hesitation. “Absolutely, there’s a market. According to many recent polls, forty percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, as opposed to twenty percent who consider themselves liberal.  There are twice as many conservatives than liberals, but since liberals control the media, entertainment, public schools and universities, they drive the agenda and it appears conservative philosophy is the minority view, which clearly is not the case, as reflected in poll after poll.”

Allen intends to market the music himself for the time being under his own record label, Tea Party Rock Records, the Tea Party Rock website and other outlets like itunes,  unless he finds another record label or promoter that suits his needs. “There are too many charlatans in the record industry who take advantage of people’s vanity. I had a record label interested, but they wanted me to transfer ownership of the master recording, even though the label didn’t invest a dime to produce it. I’m a capitalist at heart, but this offer was so exploitive, I walked away. A production company heard the CD and loved it. But then the catch came. Give us $45,000 for the next six months to promote it. I told them, I know I have a stupid face, but there’s no way I could be as dumb as I look. If I have to give you $45,000, I’ll just use it to promote it myself. Sayonara.”

 Allen is considering encouraging other artists to join his Tea Party Rock Record label and take the show on the road. “I want a label with all music genres, as long as it’s good music. I’m a lawyer by trade, ran a law firm and I’m a musician.  If others can have an independent record label, why not me? My label will be different because it’s not going to be a scam to exploit people’s dreams. There’s a reason vanity is one of the seven deadliest sins and too many on the Internet know how to exploit it. I had others try to exploit Tea Party Rock, which I know is good music, but my legal background prevents others from exploiting me.”

 Only time will tell if Tea Party Rock and Tea Party Rock Records becomes a success and a permanent genre of music or just another passing music fad. Allen is betting on the latter.

# # #

Independent record label founded by an attorney/activist/musician. It's goal is to sign aspiring artists performing a wide variety of music genres provided it's good music performed professionally. The goal is make it a friendly forum for artists to get their music out to the public to be heard.