I caught a little story on indie rockers from Wassilla, Alaska, and there thoughts on GOP VP Nominee Sarah Palin. They do not have a high opinion of her, or of Wassilla in general.
"This whole thing is crazy," Portugal. The Man [Ed. Note: Yes, there is a period in the middle of the band’s annoying name] guitarist John Baldwin Gourley says by phone from Wasilla this past Thursday. "I was watching her speech last night and I couldn’t believe that people were cheering for her being a hockey mom from Alaska. This is the woman who tried getting our small-town librarian fired because she wouldn’t ban certain books. This whole thing blows my mind."
There are a few more great thoughts...
My favorite:
Ryan "The Alaskan" Brown, a Wasilla native, former member of Portugal. The Man, and now a bassist in the Boston band Ho-Ag, was equally flabbergasted: "This sucks. I first became conscious of politics when she became mayor, so I’ve been fairly vocal about her since I was 16. She’s like Ann Coulter without the balls. . . . I was always the person at the state fair yelling at her with a megaphone."
...
"She kept taking out bonds to build roads for the city," says Brown. "When she ran as a ‘fiscal conservative,’ the town had no debt, and when she left our debt was ridiculous." Brown also claims that Palin was instrumental in closing down the pool hall — his one spot to hang out — "because there were a few noise complaints."
There are also a few thoughts on the family friendly, GOP loving, red state conservatives in Wassilla.
One Palin-backed issue that outsiders might imagine won over Wasilla’s indie-rock community is closing time of bars: as mayor, the moose-killer insisted bars remain open until 5 am, despite pleas from local authorities — who witness regular drunk-driving carnage there — to move it back a few hours in order to prevent accidents. But it turns out that musicians care little about her last-call hard line; it seems that, at least according to Gourley and Brown, artist types mostly avoid Wasilla bars for fear of getting pummeled by real men like Palin’s union worker husband or her future self-described "redneck" son-in-law.
"The drinking problem up here is insane," says Gourley, who never goes to the infamous Mug-Shot Saloon. "Wasilla bars are pretty crazy — sometimes there are 10 fights a night."
Sounds like the place I want to raise a family!
Wasilla’s Portugal. The Man, which does not seem to have a single article written about them without referencing the "annoying period in the middle of their name," is considered by many to be the best new band from Alaska. With a Zeppelin-ish sound, and a guitarist that straps his guitar higher than many old men belt their pants, they put Jewell to shame!