Dixie Chicks braver than net artists?

It is possible to be a brave net artist but you may have a point about
performers:

Sept. 29, 2003 | ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) –

The St. Petersburg city council passed a law Monday designed to scuttle
a rock group's plans to feature an onstage suicide.

The hard-rock band Hell on Earth had said that a suicide by a
terminally ill person would take place during a concert Saturday to
raise awareness of right-to-die issues.

In response, the city council met Monday morning to unanimously approve
an emergency ordinance making it illegal to conduct a suicide for
commercial or entertainment purposes, and to host, promote and sell
tickets for such an event.

"While I still think it's a publicity stunt, we still couldn't sit idly
by and let somebody lose their life," council member Bill Foster said.

Tampa-based Hell of Earth, known for such outrageous onstage stunts as
chocolate syrup wrestling and grinding up live rats in a blender,
created the furor by announcing the suicide would happen Saturday at
the Palace Theater in downtown St. Petersburg.

But the theater's owner, David Hundley, promptly canceled the band's
show, and another venue also turned away the event.

Band leader Billy Tourtelot has vowed that the concert and suicide will
still take place at an undisclosed location in the city, broadcast live
on the band's Web site.

"This show is far more than a typical Hell On Earth performance,"
Tourtelot said in an e-mail last week. "This is about standing up for
what you believe in, and I am a strong supporter of physician-assisted
suicide."

A message left for Tourtelot was not immediately returned Monday.

A Florida law already makes assisting in a suicide manslaughter, a
second-degree felony.

Hell on Earth is playing clubs in support of its independently produced
album, "All Things Disturbingly Sassy."


— "marc.garrett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Being banned by US radio stations doesn't faze the Dixie Chicks,
> writes
> Terry Reilly.
>
> For Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, the two original Dixie Chicks,
> balancing integrity and diplomacy was the hardest thing when
> considering a
> change of vocalists in 1995. As they saw it, the right voice would
> make the
> difference between languishing in obscurity and getting right out
> there.
> "When I first heard Natalie's voice, I knew anything was possible,"
> says
> multi-instrumentalist Robison.
>
> Natalie Maines, the feisty daughter of Texan steel-guitar legend
> Lloyd
> Maines, had country showmanship surging through her veins. Before
> her, the
> Dixie Chicks, formed in 1989, had singers Robyn Lynn Macy and Laura
> Lynch
> (who left in 1992 and '95, respectively) for three unsung albums.
> Now, with
> Maines behind the microphone, the Chicks have notched three
> triple-platinum
> CDs - Wide Open Spaces (1998), Fly (1999) and Home (2002).
>
> Signature three-part harmonies, unbridled virtuosity and finely honed
> stage
> skills define the Texan trio, and are beautifully apparent on the
> recent
> Live at the Kodak Theatre DVD.
>
> Natalie Maines' clinker of a country voice catapulted the Dixie
> Chicks into
> recording history. But it was on another level that the voice
> unwittingly
> antagonised pro-war hardliners in the US. Last March, Maines told a
> London
> audience: "We're ashamed the President of the United States is from
> Texas."
>
> The backlash in the land of the free was lightning-swift. Radio
> stations,
> leading a national boycott, encouraged listeners to dump their Dixie
> Chicks
> CDs in bins outside the studios.
>
> However, despite a steady flow of death threats and abusive emails,
> the trio
> didn't back down, appearing naked on the cover of magazine
> Entertainment
> Weekly in May. Emblazoned on their bodies were "Dixie Sluts",
> "Traitors",
> "Boycott", "Saddam's Angels" and "Proud Americans".
>
> "It was our idea," says Robison. "People were calling us sluts.
> Therefore,
> if I held a political view, suddenly I was sleeping around."
>
> Boycotts aside, they're confident of maintaining their status and
> enthusiasm. "We can sell two or three million albums without radio
> play,"
> Robison says.
>
> Maines, however, is the first to admit she has a big mouth. She
> knocked Toby
> Keith's anti-Taliban song, Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The
> Angry
> American), which includes the line: "And you'll be sorry you messed
> with the
> US of A/'Cos we'll put a boot in your ass."
>
> "It's ignorant," she says, "and it makes country music sound
> ignorant."
>
> The public sniping continued when Keith allegedly flashed a composite
> photograph of Saddam Hussein and Natalie Maines on screen at one of
> his
> concerts. Maines, putting it on her chest, wore a white T-shirt with
> the
> slogan "F.U.T.K." at the Academy of Country Music Awards.
>
> But it's sheer enthusiasm that drives the Dixie Chicks - and
> sometimes
> affects their apparel. Maines, engrossed in her performance during
> one show,
> was unaware her top had split, allowing one of her breasts to escape
> its
> confines for an entire song. Similarly, Robison kept abreast of the
> music
> during an intense banjo solo in front of 20,000 people. "You try
> something
> new," she says with a laugh, "and your tube top falls and you're
> exposed.
> Either I stop my solo and adjust, or I keep playing. I keep playing
> in
> respect of the music."
>
> The Dixie Chicks play at Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Park, on Sunday
> and
> Monday nights.
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/26/1064083103946.html
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
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