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Shock rock: El Duce of The Mentors and Gwar on The Jerry Springer Show

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I love it when the audience feigns shock and disgust on The Jerry Springer Show, all the while poking their snouts in the dirt like pigs looking for truffles.

Gwar and El Duce of The Mentors gleefully push the crowds’ buttons as they discuss “shock rock,” which is the musical equivalent of taking a dump in the punch bowl of pop culture and political correctness.

Some might find El Duce’s “rape rock” crosses the lines of bad taste into something more vile, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Duce’s trangressions are a form of performance art in which he’s embodying the worst expectations of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and testing the boundaries of free speech. It may be crude but it’s effective.

Three months after this episode of Springer was filmed, El Duce (Eldon Hoke) died at the age of 39, which adds a bit of bittersweetness to the title of one of his classic love songs “My Erection Is Over,” the lyrics of which were quoted during the 1985 Senate hearings on offensive language in rock songs.

I want me a sleazy slut
Who can give a tongue bath to my butt
My erection is over…it’s over, it’s all over

It WAS all over when El Duce was crushed by a freight train one night in April of 1997. Some say it was suicide, some say it was payback for making claims he was hired by Courtney Love to murder Kurt Cobain. Maybe it was an accident. Whatever the case, it’s the kind of shit the denizens of Springerville love to their cluck their tongues over. 
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.23.2012
02:31 pm
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