About a year ago, Dicky Barrett — then lead singer of the legendary ska band, the mighty mighty Bosstones — coproduced an anti-vax musical anthem with professional anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy, Jr. Several days later, the Bosstones abruptly announced that the band was finally, officially done for. No specifics were given to explain the break-up, just as no reason was given several days after that when Barrett just as abruptly resigned from his voice-over job on Jimmy Kimmel.
Given that context, you might assume that Barrett went so far off the right-wing conspiracy theorist deep-end that it was impossible to reconcile things with his long-time band mates and his long-time TV crew. Such a conclusion would be difficult to confirm or deny, but I'll leave you to make up your own minds.
This week, the Instagram account for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones broke its silence and announced…a new band. Featuring Dicky Barrett, along with Pete Parada, former drummer of the Offspring, who coincidentally was also kicked out of his band for spouting anti-vax COVID-19 conspiracies and now plays drums for Tim Pool of all people. Rounding out the lineup are ex-Smash Mouth guitarist Greg Camp, who recently participated in the benefit concert for the Church of Scientology's cryptic COVID prevention campaign; Joey LaRocca of the Briggs, who has previously been criticized for his belief in Scientology; and Johnny Rioux, formerly of Street Dogs, who randomly posted a screenshot of a pro-vaccine article to his Instagram just a few weeks ago, with no caption or comment.
I'm sharing this here because I think it will be of interest to Boing Boing readers for a number of reasons. But I'm not going to actually link to the band or share their actual name or anything. You can do a quick search and find that yourself, if you'd like. The song samples they've released so far are perfectly fine punk rock, with the kind of defiant, anti-authoritarian lyrics that are so cryptic and vague as to be essentially meaningless unless you're a teenager looking to rebel against everything, in which case, it's the most profound shit imaginable (Not unlike Parada's collaboration with Tim Pool). It's like ChatGPT tried to write a punk anthem. Put another way, people will not mining these lyrics in decades from now, saying "wow, Dicky Barrett was right on with some radically progressive ideas!" The Clash, this ain't. But it's … perfectly serviceable, for a ska-punk supergroup comprised of at least several prominent anti-vaxxers.
At least that's the impression that I get.
(Sorry, I had to.)
