ROGER WATERS: MAKING UNCUT GREAT AGAIN?
The July 2017 issue of Uncut will not go down as one of my favourites. Between the extra-large, obnoxious pull-quote leading off the Jason Isbell Q&A [“Trump’s a bad guy. You can’t root for the bad guy”], and all the nonsense of the Roger Waters feature, it was quite the progressive, anti-Trump edition of my favourite music magazine. If only the editors could have somehow found space for Bruce Springsteen to carry on about the state of US politics, it would have been the cherry on top.
It doesn’t bother me to read that some artist doesn’t like this or that political leader. What annoys me is this anti-Trump sentiment that is threaded across one issue to the next – little jabs sprinkled in album reviews, articles, etc. However! In a recent issue [Uncut, May 2017], Mike Love’s low-key, supportive comments regarding Trump did make it past the editors’ red pen, so that was nice to see. Jeff Hyatt, Florida …I read the interview with Roger Waters in the July ’17 Uncut. I think he proved again that, when it comes to politics, musicians can be very naïve – even in old age. I agree with some of his views, but not on Brexit. He calls it a disaster. Time will tell.
The reason people voted to leave the EU, and why the likes of Nigel Farage came into being, is because the EU administration has been allowed to become the very thing it was set up to stop happening again; a dictatorship in Europe! It may appear more benign, but it’s a dictatorship all the same. Listen to the threatening language they’ve used since we voted leave. Who are these people? Vince Leonard, Elstow, Bedfordshire …While I appreciate Roger Waters’ continued political vigilance, I must take issue with his “so fucking what?” attitude to the recent Russian hacking of the US presidential election. Surely a man of his intelligence can see the difference between American interference in the politics of a few banana republics in the ’80s and the swaying of the leadership of the most powerful country on Earth, and the global ripples that ensue?