From: Scott Bernstein <bernstei@remus.rutgers.edu>
Subject: GSAC Horde (revisited)
Reply-To: bernstei@remus.rutgers.edu
Organization: The Internet
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 03:58:12 GMT


I just got a copy of the Village Voice (a liberal NYC weekly newspaper).
There was an article in the music section about the HORDE.
Here is the text -- from the 7/28 issue:

                 WHAT FIRST AMENDMENT?
"Bands influenced by the GRATEFUL DEAD {this was in BOLD print -- once
again another Dead reference when referring to these bands which have 
somehow been given their own genre -- what gives????} tend to have the 
same effect on us as 54 minute speeches by BILL CLINTON {Bold again}
{?????????} so when the HORDE tour -- Horizon of Rock Developing
Everywhere, a mini-Lollapalloza {?????} tour with SPIN DOCTORS,
BLUES TRAVELER, PHISH, COL. BRUCE HAMPTON AND THE AQUARIUM RESCUE UNIT,
WIDESPREAD PANIC {all in bold} and assorted advocacy groups -- stopped
at the Garden State Arts Center (GSAC) and Jones Beach Theatre on July
11th and 12 we stayed home {jeez, I wonder why they lumped these bands
together as GD influenced....I think this might just be the snowball
effect from the Rolling Stone Article } But a line in Peter Watrous'
{Bold} Times {I guess they mean the NY Times} review last wednesday
set off our alarm:  "The National Organization for Women, National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and Planned Parenthood
were also to have been part of the show, but a tour official said 
state parks officials had barred them."  After all, the last time 
these venues were in the news, it was when Jones Beach turned away
Greenpeace from a 1989 Tom Petty show and the GSAC banned Sinead
O'Connor in 1990 after she refused to let them play the national
anthem.
"When ROCKBEAT {Bold} called the GSAC, which is overseen by the NJ
highway authority, a spokesperson initially invoked an "unwritten"
policy of not allowing any political groups into the theater with 
the exception of environmental organizations.  Further inquiries 
turned up a second spokesperson with a "written" policy preventing
"soliciting activity of that nature on the Garden State Parkway"
and  a "tradition" of excepting ecologically minded organizations
from that policy.  Written or unwritten, such organizations are
"totally unconstitutional" according to lawyers at the New York
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is considering
legal action against the venues.  Confronted with the constitutional
question, GSAC referred us to their lawyers who have yet to return
our calls.  But not even a lawyer could explain the basic contradiction:
the GSAC allowed some nonenvironmental groups -- PETA, FAIR, and the 
International Indian Treaty Council -- but not NORML, NOW, or Planned
Parenthood, all of whom were told in advance by HORDE that the venue
wouldn't have them.
"The same thing happened at Jones Beach where things were even
more confusing.  The State Parks Commission, which oversees the 
theater, claims they didn't bar anyone from tabling, passing the
blame to the Ron Delsner {BOld} company, which books the theatre.
Delsner's office didn't return repeated phone calls, but Billy {BOLD}
COHEN of HORDE's national promoter, Bill Graham {Bold} Presents, did.  
He explained that the ban on NORML, NOW, and Planned Parenthood had 
come to his office from Delsener's people, "But there's no good 
reason for Delesner's company to originate it.  The directive came from
the state parks people.
""This is tyranny!" Spin Doctors frontman CHRIS BARRON {Bold} told us,
"People have to act on this or our system of rights will collapse very
quickly."  And while perhaps that's a trifle shrill, it does seem to us
that taxpayer-supported arts venues ought to have a bit more respect
for the First Amendment.  That is, after all, the country's written
policy."

and one more quote from later on in the column:

"Next up for boycott, Eric Clapton {bold} whose cover of Bob 
Marley's {Bold} "I Shot the Sheriff" has promoted the senseless
slaughter of peace officers in FM perpuity since its release in
1974."

Enjoy this one!

Newsgroups: rec.music.phish